Carroll took a second to give herself a mental pat on the back. Her effort had been heroic, to say the least. It wasn't easy to be bright and chatty when your body was simmering with tension and-yes, damn it-a betraying sense of anticipation. If they gave medals for performance under racking circumstances, she deserved one. Maybe two.

Because Slade Ryan was nothing but pure temptation.

And she was very susceptible.

His crisp black hair was the kind that made her fingertips tingle. And for a woman who professed to be disinterested in men, she was alarmingly distracted by him. No, having Slade around for the past several weeks had proven one thing: she wasn't immune to that old devil, sex. When he was near, she almost forgot about a father who had walked away with no apparent regret, followed by a husband who had done the same. Almost, but not quite.

It wasn't that she thought he was lying; Slade seemed to be an honorable man, but she hadn't known him long enough to be certain. At any rate, if he made a commitment, he seemed to be the type who would honor it. He talked about marriage, and he probably meant it. Now. But, regardless of his present intentions, he could always change his mind. People did. Not just men, she thought, being fair: people.

And on that fragile foundation she was supposed to build a future? Trust her own future-and her daughter's-to something so uncertain? No, thank you. Slade Ryan might be the sexiest man to come down the pike in… all right, admit it, her entire life, but sexy didn't count when the chips were down. It helped, but what really counted was staying power.

Carroll wasn't a gambler. She never hid the Fact that risk-taking wasn't high on her list of priorities. She was far too practical. Too level-headed. Not very exciting qualities, she was quick to admit, but somebody in her family had to have them. At the age of twelve she had learned that both Kris and Noel were blithely indifferent to financial matters. If things were left to them, they would stuff bills and paychecks in an old box and expect some metaphysical happening to straighten out the ensuing mess. That was when she had studied a book about budgeting and learned to write checks and reconcile a bank account. As she remembered, Noel and Kris had given loud cries of joy, signed checks when requested, and otherwise washed their hands of the entire situation.

Good old steady, Carroll. She wasn't rash or impulsive. Her only legacy from Kris and Noel was her boundless optimism, the belief that things almost always happened for the best. Running her own business had merely emphasized the merits of planning ahead, being organized and adhering to a schedule. Dull, she thought glumly. Deadly dull. Whatever had made a man like Slade even look at her, much less propose marriage? She blinked. Well, he hadn't exactly proposed. What he'd done was casually drop the idea right in the middle of their conversation.

Whatever. The point was, dull or not, she was still tempted. And the sad part was, if she told her family what he wanted, she wouldn't get a bit of sympathy. Kris had taken to him like a long-lost son and would consider her insane for even hesitating. Noel wouldn't care one way or another, as long as Slade didn't interfere with her painting. And Christy? Her daughter considered him prime father material. She had taken one look at Slade and fallen in love.

And her own reaction? Carroll admitted that she was terrified. She had forgotten what it was like to have a man around, especially one who allowed his steamy glances to reveal just how much he wanted her. It had been a long time since her body had hummed with pleasure when a man looked at her. It was scary. It was exhilarating. And very frustrating. And now, if she said no, he would walk out of her life. Of course, if she said yes, he might do the same thing-just a bit further down the road.

Slade cleared his throat. "Hello? Are you in there?"

"Hmm?" She glanced up and flushed when she met his intrigued gaze. "Sorry. What did you say?"

"How hard do you think it will hit Kris when he realizes that all those lights aren't going to work?" he repeated patiently.

She stared at him. "They can't not work. He's fussed over these plans for years, ever since Christy was a baby, and he's promised that this is the year they all go on. Look over there." She waved in the direction of the park they were passing. "There are a couple of hundred trees in there, and they all have lights. Animated scenes run all the way through the place. He designed every one of them. He cut them, painted them and hooked up all the mechanical stuff in his workshop. And look at all the decorations on the homes." She shook her head. "No, the question isn't how will he take it, the question is how to make it work."

Slade swore softly. "It's not the houses that I'm concerned about. They're each capable of supporting their own lights. It's all this other stuff-the park, the trees along every road, even the streetlights! This is an old town, Carroll. When they set up shop, they weren't anticipating power demands like this. There is no way it can work." He didn't sound happy, but he spoke with flat assurance.

"Can't you do something?" Carroll winced at the outright pleading in her voice.

"I'm not a miracle worker," he told her with an exasperated sigh. "He'll be okay with the first batch of lights, and if he follows my advice and does some rewiring, he'll even make the second. But not the third. His plans for Christmas Eve are nothing but a dream."

Carroll couldn't think of a single thing to say except that she believed in dreams, that without them the world would be a bleak place. Since the thought was optimistic but not very helpful, she kept it to herself, aimlessly kicking her way through a pile of maple leaves while she mulled things over. At first she didn't hear the lingering whistle. It was a typical appreciative male whistle, the kind that women all over the world pretended to ignore.

"Hey, Blondie, how about a few fast games later?"

Carroll's welcoming smile faded when Slade turned his head slowly, his narrowed eyes zeroing in on three grinning young men. He took a deep breath and seemed to grow about a foot. He was angry, she realized, staring at the muscle flexing in his jaw. No, what he was was furious!

"Slade! Wait a minute," she whispered urgently, tugging at the sleeve of his jacket, stunned by his reaction. "They're friends, Slade. Friends. They're also just kids-homesick kids, at that. They're from Camp Pendleton." She waved in the direction of the massive U.S. Marine camp less than fifty miles away. "They were part of the gang who helped Kris put up the lights."

"What does he mean, games!" He didn't take his narrowed eyes off the three, who were loping toward them with the enthusiasm of half-grown pups.

"Checkers," she said hastily, still alarmed by the tension emanating from his lean frame. "After they finished with the lights, the kids all came to the house for pizza, and I played checkers with the redhead."

"The one with the big mouth?" he said grimly.

"Slade, for heaven's sake! He was only teasing. He's a nice boy. They're all nice," she added firmly.

"Hey, Carroll, how's Kris doing? When do we get to see these famous lights?" They drew to a halt, glanced curiously at the silent man beside her, then turned back to her, basking in the warmth of her smile.

"The first batch goes on tomorrow night." She held up her hand to stop them and said, "Slade, I want you to meet Jim, Mac and Red. Kris couldn't have managed the lights without them. Guys, this is Slade Ryan, my new neighbor."

As soon as the four men had made appropriate introductory noises, Red turned back to Carroll. "We've been talking about this-" he gestured toward a bedecked row of trees "-and we figure Kris is going to have a lot of trouble with all this stuff."

The other two chimed in.

"We're ETs at Pendleton," Jim told Slade. "Electronic technicians."

Mac shot Carroll a worried look. "We were talking to one of our instructors and telling him about the setup here. He says it's never going to work."


Noel was in the kitchen, industriously crushing graham crackers with a rolling pin, when they walked in. She was wearing narrow-legged jeans and a large paint-speckled flannel shirt, and looked almost as young as her daughter.

Slade glanced at the pyramidlike mounds of golden crumbs resting on every flat surface in the room. "Starting your own bakery?" he asked pleasantly, deciding to give it one more try. He had yet to have a conversation with Noel that actually resembled a conversation.

She looked up from her task, her unfocused gaze settling on the wall beyond him. "My log looks like a crocodile."

"You've got enough crumbs here to make a dozen tortes," he persevered, slanting a mystified look at Carroll.

"A crocodile with rigor mortis." Noel shook more crackers from the box and added them to the crumbs on the large piece of foil. She attacked them so briskly that her gray bangs bounced on her forehead and her long braid swung over her shoulder and settled between her breasts.

Slade poured himself a cup of coffee and tried again. "Christy showed me your studio the other day."

"It looks like a Florida swamp."

"It didn't look that bad," Slade soothed, pushing his chair away from the spraying crumbs. "Not nearly as bad as my place gets when I'm in the middle of a project."

Carroll made a choking sound behind him.

Noel stopped abusing the crumbs and reached for a large glass bowl. She dropped in two cubes of butter and dumped sugar into a large plastic measuring cup. When she poured it into the bowl, her eyes narrowed as the butter gradually disappeared. "Snow," she murmured thoughtfully. "That could be it." She stared down into the bowl. "Yes, that's definitely it. I'll cover the damned alligator with an avalanche." She tossed the measuring cup aside and trotted out of the room.