“Exactly like you called me?”

“Bett, it just sort of happened…”

“So did Mr. Hines just sort of happen,” Bett said glumly. She leaned back against one wall; Zach leaned against the other. “But of all people. Red?” she moaned. “Honestly, Zach, what were you thinking? Red is so…lusty.”

“Lusty?” Zach’s mouth twitched. “Two bits, he’s got a paid-for business, a host of grandkids running in and out, a house that needs caring for, and financial security.”

Bett looked up at the ceiling. “He gives Mom one of those bear hugs and she’ll take off for the closet.”

“You think your choice is better? Hines might work up to a kiss after a five-year engagement.”

“He’s a very nice man,” Bett said huffily.

“He’s as boring as limp lettuce.”

A gentle knock interrupted them. Bett swiftly opened the door. Elizabeth blinked, startled to find the two of them in the bathroom together. “I was just coming to help you with dinner,” Bett announced brightly.

Dinner just didn’t go as anticipated. Theodore sliced his lamb into tiny pieces. Red wolfed his down. Elizabeth sat at one end of the table and steadily kept serving food that just as steadily kept disappearing. The two bachelors had clearly never eaten in their lives before. Theodore, in spite of all his priceless manners, was silently working on his third helping. Bett stared helplessly at Zach. No one was talking. What was this? Everyone was just…eating.

She pinched Zach’s thigh beneath the table. His fork clattered to his plate. “How’s business going, Red?”

“Jes’ fine, jes’ fine. More of them peas, please, Miss Elizabeth…”

“Certainly.” Elizabeth smiled.

They listened for a minute and a half to a discourse on the price of chicken feed before the conversation died again. Bett let her fingers wander up Zach’s thigh beneath the table. Half a dozen peas jumped from his fork back to the plate. “Extra busy at the library, Mr.-Theodore?”

The librarian looked up. “There’s been a rush on Chaucer,” he announced happily. “Three English classes at the high school got it assigned at the same time. I had to limit them to a seven-day checkout schedule-”

Chaucer didn’t go over very well. Bett seemed to be the only one listening as Elizabeth served sponge cake. As she swallowed her second bite, politely looking at Theodore Hines, Bett was terrified that she was going to yawn. Her left hand strayed to Zach’s lap again.

“More cake, Zach?” Elizabeth asked. “Anyone else?”

No-thank-yous chorused around the table.

“Well, I’ll just do the dishes, then,” Elizabeth announced.

Bett jumped up. “I’ll do them. Zach will keep me company. Would you serve coffee to Red and Theodore in the living room, Mom?”

The exodus didn’t take long. Bett stacked the dirty plates and carried them to the sink, casting a critical eye at Zach, who was still sitting by his lonesome at the kitchen table. There was definitely a wicked hint of sapphire in his eyes. “Have you taken a look at your left hand recently?” he asked.

“No. Why?” She lifted up her palm.

“It should be blushing from all that…activity at the table.”

“It is,” she announced, and added sadly, “Zach, this isn’t going at all well.”

“Give them a few minutes.” He rose from the table to help her with the dishes. They took as long as they could. When neither could find a single excuse to remain in the kitchen, they both walked just to the door and paused to peer delicately around the corner.

Red was slouched on the sofa, his stomach protruding; he was red-faced and yawning from his huge dinner. Theodore sat next to him, primly erect, his hands fidgeting in his lap. Elizabeth was sitting in the chair across from them, crocheting an afghan. No one was talking.

Zach glanced at Bett. “A bomb might get that group moving, but I doubt it,” he whispered.

“We shouldn’t have fed them. They both look ready to go to sleep.” Bett sighed. “Mom would have considered it a compliment if they did fall asleep after one of her dinners.”

Zach left to drive the potential beaux home at nine. Shortly after that, Elizabeth declared she was tired, and picked up a book to take to her room. “I think it’s a healthy thing that you two have such a wide variety of friends, Bett.”

“Yes.” Bett climbed the stairs behind her mother and gave her an affectionate hug at the top. “I’m sorry to have landed you with an extra two for dinner.”

“You’re joking. You know I love that. You have as many people over as you want, anytime,” Elizabeth assured her.

Bett took a bath, donned nothing afterward and climbed smooth-skinned under the sheet to wait for Zach. She heard the truck roll in around ten and then listened to the assorted muted sounds from below-Zach getting a drink of water, switching off the lights, swearing softly at Sniper who evidently was sitting in the middle of the stairway.

When he saw that the bedroom light was off, Zach entered very silently, closing the door behind him. Moonlight shone in on the comforter, on the soft mound of Bett’s figure. She was exhausted; he wasn’t surprised. Her mischievous moves under the dinner table were still making him smile; it had made a difference, their talk. Not that she couldn’t exhibit more sass than sense on occasion, but Bett had always been a toucher-a caress, a kiss, a hug, all of which had been missing whenever her mother had been in the same room. He felt a warm tug of love for his lady, who had just needed a little reminder that they stayed together through thick and thin. These days were a little thin with Elizabeth around, but they were coping. He pulled off his jeans and shirt, then the rest of his clothes, and very carefully made his way to the bed in the darkness, not wanting to wake her.

The sheets were cold. Gradually, his body heat began to transfer to the percale. He moved instinctively to his side, one arm reaching to drape around Bett and drag her into the spoon of his chest and bent knee.

She turned at just that instant to face him, sliding her leg between his, arching her small breasts against him, snuggling provocatively. “You’re tired,” she whispered.

The hell he was. An amused smile crossed his face as he reached for her. Those hot little button nipples pressing against his ribs roused about a dozen reactions, none of them exhaustion. Her thighs were smoother than silk, but much, much warmer. “You want to go to sleep, do you?” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to talk.”

“I do want to talk,” she corrected sleepily, her palm sliding down the muscle of his thigh. “Just not at this exact minute.”

“You’re too tired.”

“We both need sleep,” Bett agreed in a low, throaty whisper.

He really had to do something to control those teasing impulses of hers. She arched back when his lips found the column of her throat. He cradled her closer yet, his palms splayed on her bottom. Her skin was warm and pliant, fragrant like the night, as provocative as the darkness. A sweet little tremor shook her body when his hand smoothed down the length of her.

The light knock on the door made him grit his teeth. “Brittany?” Elizabeth whispered.

Zach clamped a hand on Bett’s mouth. She was too busy swallowing to answer, anyway. “She’s asleep, Liz. Need something?”

“Oh, of course not, Zach. I certainly didn’t mean to disturb you. Brittany and I have rather gotten used to sharing a cup of tea when she can’t sleep,” Elizabeth whispered. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

She hesitated. “You don’t know where she keeps the tea?”

The tea was in the same cupboard it always was. In the kitchen, with all the lights turned on again, Elizabeth beamed at Zach, at the same time sending him apologetic signals with her eyes. “You didn’t have to get up, you know; but I have to admit I rarely have the chance to talk to just you.”

His dark robe belted firmly around him, Zach smothered an irritated yawn. Bett was all through with interrupted nights. And when the moment presented itself, Elizabeth was about to get a very tactful lecture on privacy. He forced a smile as he settled in the kitchen chair across from his mother-in-law.

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you alone for some time, anyway,” Elizabeth admitted shyly. Her color was suddenly high, matching her bright pink robe with the ruffles at the neck. “Zach, I feel I can talk to you. I always have. Most sons-in-law…I just don’t think I would have had that feeling.”

Zach lifted his eyebrows, the first puff of wind knocked out of his sails. “If you have some problem, Liz…”

“Not exactly a problem. It’s just-oh, I just feel Chet should have handled this. You know, you and Bett have been married for some time.”

“Yes.”

Elizabeth dunked her tea bag, then delicately dropped it in the saucer and lifted the cup to her lips. “I don’t know how to say this,” she admitted with a shy little laugh. “My daughter… I love my Brittany so very much, Zach. She’s not…”

Zach waited, not having the least idea how to help her because he didn’t have the least idea what she was talking about.

“In the beginning of a marriage,” Elizabeth said slowly, “a young couple is so very much in love. But then later, ‘in love’ changes to loving; it’s a very different thing, a much more important thing.” Elizabeth pleated her robe four times, and then took another sip of tea. “Sometimes, it takes work, loving. The thing is, Brittany is rather shy, Zach. Hardly a woman of the world. She never has been. One would like to be sure she is happy.”

Elizabeth leveled a soft, brown-eyed, puppy stare at him that Zach understood very well was supposed to be meaningful. He floundered. “You mean the farm-”

“No,” Elizabeth said swiftly, and lowered her eyes. “Chet would have handled this so much better,” she announced.