Charlotte chuckled softly. “That’s putting it mildly, but gradually he won me over. He was endlessly patient….”

Carrie realized there was a lot more that her mother wasn’t telling her. She’d long suspected that in the early days, her mother’s relationship with Jason had been anything but smooth.

Charlotte resumed stirring. “As I said, his patience won me over. His patience and his drop-dead kisses,” she amended. “If ever a man had a talent for kissing, it’s your stepfather.” She grinned shyly and looked away.

“Philip has the same gift,” Carrie whispered, feeling a bit shy about sharing this aspect of their relationship with her mother.

Charlotte didn’t say anything for a long moment. “So you’ve been seeing Mackenzie’s father.”

“Not as much as I’d like,” she said. “He’s been divorced for three years and according to Mackenzie he hasn’t gone out on a single date.” She assumed that well-meaning friends had tried to set him up. His own daughter had made the effort, too. With Carrie.

“So he comes with a load of emotional trauma. Has he ever talked about what went wrong in his marriage?”

“No.” Carrie hated to admit how little time they’d spent together. Feeding Maria’s homeless cats was as close as they’d come to an actual date. She wasn’t sure how to measure the time in the elevator. Although she’d managed to make him think his callous attitude afterward hadn’t fooled her, in truth she didn’t know what his reaction had been.

“You’re afraid he’s coming to mean more to you than is sensible, after so short an acquaintance.”

“Exactly. But, Mom, he’s constantly on my mind. I go to bed at night, close my eyes and he’s there. I get up in the morning and take the bus to the office and all I can think about is him.”

“He’s attracted to you?”

“I think so…. I don’t know anymore. My guess is that he is, but he’s fighting it. He doesn’t want to care for me. He’d rather I lived across the city—or the country—than in the same building with him. We try to avoid each other—we probably wouldn’t see each other at all if it wasn’t for Mackenzie. The girl’s made it her mission in life to make sure we do.”

Charlotte dumped the warm fudge into a buttered cookie sheet. “This is beginning to sound familiar.”

“In what way?”

Charlotte giggled. “Oh, Carrie, how soon you forget. You’re the one who pushed, pulled and shoved me into a relationship with Jason. It would’ve been horrible if he was a different kind of man. But he was patient and nonthreatening. Like Philip, I came into the relationship with more than my share of emotional trauma. But he was exactly the man I needed. You’ve always been a sensitive, intuitive child. Out of all the men you might have picked for me, you chose the one man who possessed the qualities I needed most.” She reached over and stroked the side of Carrie’s face, her expression warm and tender. “In my heart of hearts, I’m confident you’ve done the same thing for yourself. Philip needs you just as much as I needed Jason. Be patient with him, Carrie. Your heart—and your ego—may take a few jabs before this is finished. Be prepared for that, but don’t be afraid to love him. Mackenzie, too. I promise you, it’ll be worth the wait.”

How wise her mother was, Carrie mused as she left the family home. How wise and wonderful. Not for the first time, Carrie was grateful for a mother she could talk to, a mother she could confide in, a mother who didn’t judge, but listened and advised.

“What are you doing here?” Gene Tarkington asked, stepping into Philip’s office. He leaned against the doorjamb, striking a relaxed pose. The entire floor was empty. Row upon row of desks stretched across the floor outside his office.

“I thought I’d come in and run these figures one last time,” Philip murmured, staring at the computer screen. Although he considered Gene one of his best friends, he’d prefer to be alone just then.

“Hey, buddy, it’s almost Christmas. Haven’t you got anything better to do than stop by the office?”

“What about you?” Philip challenged. He wasn’t the only workaholic in this company.

“I came to get some papers and saw the light on in your office. I thought you were having lunch with Mackenzie this afternoon. A little father-daughter tête-à-tête. That kid’s a real sweetheart.”

“We had our lunch,” Philip muttered, “but it turns out I wasn’t the only one Mackenzie invited.”

“You mean she brought along that neighbor friend of yours? The woman who works for Microsoft?”

“That’s her.” Philip frowned anew, remembering how upset he’d been when he discovered what Mackenzie had done. From the way she’d acted, he should’ve guessed she’d try something like this. What distressed him even more was the way his heart had responded when Carrie walked into the deli. The joy and excitement he’d felt…

But he didn’t want to feel these things for her. It’d taken effort to steel himself against those very emotions. He’d been burned once, badly enough to know better than to play with fire. Carrie Weston wasn’t some little innocent, either. Every time he was with her, he felt as if he was holding a book of matches.

“Mackenzie’s pretty levelheaded. What have you got against this neighbor woman? She’s not ugly, is she?”

“No.” He recalled what a shock it was when he realized how lovely Carrie was.

“If you want my opinion, I’d say count your blessings. Generally, the divorced guys I know would welcome a woman their daughters like. Remember what happened to Cal? His daughter and second wife hate each other. Any time they’re out together, Cal has to keep them from coming to blows.”

“I’m not Cal.”

“It seems to me that if your daughter’s that keen on this neighbor, you should take the time to find out what she likes so much. I’m no expert on women or romance, but—”

“My thoughts exactly,” Philip said pointedly. He’d come to the office to escape Carrie, not to have her name thrown in his face. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do.”

Gene rubbed the side of his face. “I doubt that. But I hate to see you wasting time in this office when Christmas is only a few days away. If you want to hide, there are better places than here.”

Although Gene’s tone was friendly enough, the words made Philip’s jaw tighten. It was all he could do to keep from blaming his friend for his troubles. Gene owned the apartment complex, and it was because of him that Philip and Mackenzie were living there.

“Well, I’ve got to get back to the car. Marilyn’s waiting. You know how it is the last weekend before Christmas. The malls are a madhouse and naturally my wife thinks this is the perfect time to finish the shopping. She wouldn’t dream of going alone. I told her there should be a Husband of the Year award in this for me,” he said, and chuckled. “But she promised me another kind of reward.” From the contented, anticipatory look on his friend’s face, one would think Gene was headed for the final game of the World Series, not a shopping mall.

“See you later,” Philip said.

“Later,” Gene returned. “Just promise me you won’t stay here long.”

“I won’t.”

Gene left, and the office had never seemed emptier. The place seemed to echo with loneliness, a constant reminder that Philip was by himself. His friend was right; it was almost Christmas, yet he was at the office hiding. While Gene was out fighting the Christmas crowds with his wife, Philip had crept in here, the way he always did whenever life threatened to offer him something he couldn’t handle. Even a gift.

Because that was what Gene had more or less told him Carrie was. A woman Mackenzie not only liked, but championed. Like Gene, lots of guys would advise him to count his blessings. But instead of thanking his daughter for lunch, he’d chastised her for using it as an opportunity to get him together with Carrie.

Carrie.

Every time he thought of her, a chill raced through his blood. No, that wasn’t it. His blood didn’t go cold, it heated up. Carrie was charming, generous, delightful, kind—and more of a mother to his daughter than her own had ever been.

Philip rolled his chair away from his desk, stood and walked over to the large picture window. The view of downtown Seattle and Puget Sound was spectacular from his twentieth-story viewpoint. Breathtaking. The waterfront, the ferry dock, Pike Place Market, all alive with activity. Philip couldn’t count the number of times he’d stood exactly where he was now and looked out and seen nothing, felt nothing.

He went back to his desk and turned off his computer, feeling more confused than when he’d arrived. It was a sad day, he thought wryly, when he was reduced to accepting his thirteen-year-old daughter’s advice, but in this case, Mackenzie was right. She’d told him to get a life. Instead, Philip had dug himself deeper into his rut, fearing that any life he got would include putting the past behind him. It wasn’t that the past held any allure for him. The reverse, in fact. He’d married too young, unwisely. He was terrified of repeating the same mistake. Terrified of what that would do to him—and Mackenzie.

Locking up, Philip went back to the apartment building. He parked in the garage across the street and was just walking toward the entrance when he saw Carrie. There was a natural buoyancy to her step, a joy that radiated from inside her. He sometimes wondered what she had to be so happy about. That no longer concerned him, because he wanted whatever it was.

“Carrie!” Unsure what he’d say when he caught up with her, Philip hurried across the street.

Carrie paused midway up the steps and turned around. Some of the happiness left her eyes when she saw him. She waited until he’d reached her before she spoke. “I had no idea Mackenzie had invited us both to lunch,” she told him.

“I know that,” he said, regretting his angry mood earlier.

“You do?”

Every time he saw her it was a shock to realize how beautiful she was. Her intense blue eyes cut straight through him. “I was wondering…I know it’s last-minute and you’ve probably got other plans, but…” He paused. “Would you go Christmas shopping with me?” He was afraid that if he invited her to dinner or a movie she’d turn him down and he wouldn’t blame her. “For Mackenzie,” he said, adding incentive. “I could do with a few suggestions.”

His invitation had apparently taken her by surprise because she frowned at him before asking, “When?”

“Is now convenient?” he asked hopefully. He was as crazy as his friend Gene to even consider going shopping today.

“Now,” she repeated, then smiled, that soft, sweet smile of hers. “Okay.”

Okay. It was crazy how one small word could produce such exhilaration. If this were the theater, he’d break into song about now. A Christmas carol maybe—something like “Joy to the World.”

She walked down the three or four steps to join him on the sidewalk. That little bounce of hers was back. The bounce that said she was glad to be alive and glad to be with him.

He was the one who should be grateful, Philip thought. He tucked her arm in his and led her back to the parking garage.

Life was good. It had been a long time since he’d believed that, but he did now.

Eight

A few hours earlier, Carrie had been telling her mother that she barely knew Philip Lark and now she doubted there was any man she knew better. They sat in an Italian restaurant, Christmas packages around their feet, and talked until it seemed there was nothing more to say. Their dinner dishes had long since been removed and Philip poured the last of the red wine into her goblet.