"You're a real optimist, aren't you?"

"I've tried pessimism. It just doesn't work for me. Let's take a look at the second floor."

They went back inside and up the stairs, and Alison gushed over the stained-glass window on the midfloor landing. She also loved the black-and-white tile and the claw-foot tubs in the bathrooms and the walls of windows in the bedrooms. Then they went into the room where the pool table was, and her eyes lit up again.

"Oh, my God," she said as she walked slowly toward it. "That is the most amazingly beautiful thing I've ever seen."

"It's a little rough around the edges," Brandon said. "It was in the house when my grandparents bought it, and it was already a little beat up. Age hasn't helped it much."

"Yeah, but it's still gorgeous. Look at the legs! Lions? I've never seen anything like it before."

Brandon smiled, pleased that somebody finally appreciated the old Brunswick Monarch. Tom still thought it looked like a piece of junk.

"Would you like to play?" he asked her.

"Really?" she said with a smile.

"Sure."

"I'd love to," she said, tossing her list and her purse to the chair behind her. "And you'd better look out. I'm pretty good at pool. Eight ball?"

Brandon smiled furtively. "Eight ball it is."

As he gathered the balls, Alison grabbed a cue from the rack on the wall, rubbing the tip of it with chalk. She was dressed in a pair of khaki shorts and a snug little T-top that drew his gaze right to her breasts, and he didn't stop looking as she leaned over the table. He really needed not to do that. Unless she wasn't looking. Then he intended to look all he wanted to.

As it turned out, her proclamation of pool prowess turned out to be nothing but trash talk. Her stance was all wrong, and she lined up a shot with all the expertise of a fiveyearold. She swung her arm back in a funny arc, then whacked the cue ball just a little too hard. Okay, a lot too hard. It leaped into the air, then clattered back to the felt. Then, unbelievably, it traveled the length of the table and actually collided with the balls. The seven headed for the corner pocket.

Slowly.

"Come on, come on, come on," Alison murmured as the ball crept toward the pocket. It teetered on the edge, then finally dropped. She threw both arms in the air. "Woo hoo! Did you see that?" She spun around to Brandon with a sly smile. "Ha. Told you I'm good."

He decided not to mention that it didn't count if she hadn't called the shot. "I had no idea. Let's see if you can do it again."

Alison turned back around to study the table. "Hmm. Maybe I'll sink that four, huh?"

"The four? You might want to think about the nine instead."

"Yeah, of course you'd suggest that. It's a harder shot. Do I look like a fool?"

"No, ma'am," he said. "You most certainly do not."

She lined up the cue ball with the four to knock it into a side pocket, only to stand up again with a quizzical expression. "Now, which one was I again? Stripes or solids?"

"I thought you were good at this."

"I can shoot. I just can't remember...you know. Which balls I am."

"Stripes."

"Oh," she said, looking back at the solid four ball she'd had her eye on. "Well, then. Forget the four. That would be silly. The nine it is."

Alison's gentle, self-deprecating humor was such a breath of fresh air after most of the women Brandon had known, ones who were either so insecure they couldn't admit to a fault if their lives depended on it, or so egotistical they couldn't admit to a fault if their lives depended on it.

He rested on his cue, watching her, and as she leaned over again, he had the perfect angle to admire her ass. Her positioning was all wrong, assuming her goal was to play pool. If her goal was to drive him just a little bit crazy, she was positioned exactly right. For just a moment, he entertained himself with the thought of easing up behind her-just to correct her position, of course. He'd lean over, slide his hand down her arm, close his hand over hers, and there he'd be, his lips only inches from her neck, so close he could turn his head and- No. Off limits. Verboten. Get your mind back where it belongs.

She leaned over her cue, and the dainty silver chain she wore around her neck swayed back and forth, sparkling in the lamp light. She moved her arm back, then took her shot. She missed the ball she was aiming for by approximately a foot and missed scratching by millimeters. Brandon leaned in, intending to dispatch the eleven and the ten simultaneously with a bank shot off the rail, which would set him up perfectly to take out the seven after that. But then it occurred to him that if he did that, a few shots later, the game would be over, and so would his entertainment for the evening.

Instead, he made a half-ass shot that sent balls banking in ways that never were going to win the game for him. But then Alison got to shoot again.

And he got to watch.

Alison crunched up her eyebrows, her forehead crinkling, as she concentrated on the shot. It was an easy one, and the three disappeared into a side pocket. She got lucky and took out one more before missing the shot after that.

Brandon dropped the twelve ball just to keep up, then missed the nine on purpose. Several rounds later, only the eight ball remained. He missed it on his turn, but managed to set it up so she could take it out with no problem.

She moved around the table and took the final shot. The eight ball fell. She let out a whoop, then turned and gave him a smug smile. "Well. You just didn't know who you were up against, did you?"

"Oh, no. I knew exactly who I was up against."

"Which was why you let me win?"

Brandon drew back. "What makes you think I let you win?"

"Did you?"

"Well...yeah. But what made you think that?"

"Because you missed shots even I could have made. And you held the cue like somebody who actually knew what he was doing."

"Does that offend you?"

"Did you let me win because I'm a girl?"

Hell, yes. Would he have been watching a guy's ass as he shot? "Yes. That's it exactly. Men are genetically predisposed to win at pool, and I'm a big believer in affirmative action."

She actually laughed at that. "Good. That meant I actually got a chance to take a shot. How much fun is it when one person runs the table and the other one just stands there?"

He grinned. "Well, if you're the one running the table and there's money on the game, it can be one hell of a lot of fun."

"So that's what it takes to flush you out? Money?" She reached into her purse. "There," she said, slapping a dollar down on the table. "I've had my fun. Now let's see what you've got." She grabbed the rack. "I'll put the balls in the thingy."

"The thingy?"

"I don't know the technical term."

"That would be 'rack.'"

"Whatever." She deposited the balls inside the rack, then lifted it. Brandon took a position at the opposite rail and prepared to break.

"Hey!" Alison said.

"What?"

"Let's see your money first."

Brandon reached into his wallet and matched her dollar bet. "You're such a high roller."

"I'm feeling lucky."

Brandon leaned over. Broke. In fewer than five minutes, he'd run the table. He dropped the eight ball to finish things off, then stood up and leaned casually on his cue.

"Wow," Alison said. "You really are good."

"And a dollar richer."

"Too bad we weren't betting when you let me win."

"If we'd been betting, I wouldn't have let you win."

"If we're going to play again, you need some kind of handicap that'll give me a chance."

"Sweetheart, I could tie one hand behind my back and I'd still beat you."

"Well, then," she said, taking a step closer to him, "maybe you should teach me how to play better."

He smiled. "Maybe I should."

They looked at each other a long time. Gradually the moment shifted, and Brandon's vision grew a little blurry around the edges until the only thing in sharp focus was Alison's face. She blinked, and it seemed as if those golden lashes stroked her cheeks in slow motion before rising again to reveal those beautiful brown eyes. A strand of hair fell along her cheek, then curved beneath the junction of her jaw and throat. Then his thoughts went completely off the rails. He started to imagine pushing that strand of hair aside and touching his lips to the place it had been, and then- "Hey, Brandon. Alison. What's going on?"

Brandon spun around to find Tom standing at the door. Brandon blinked his way back to reality, resenting the interruption even though he knew it was probably for the best. Tossing Alison down on the pool table and having his way with her probably wouldn't have been a good idea.

"Just playing a little pool," Brandon said.

"Well," Alison said. "I guess I'd better go. I'm late for movie night at my father's house."

"Movie night?"

"Yeah. We watch a movie together. If my father likes it, all is well. If he doesn't, I get to hear all about how Hollywood just doesn't make good movies anymore and everyone who lives there is going straight to hell."

"Sounds like fun."

"I think we've talked about everything that needs to be done before the home tour, haven't we?"

"Yeah," Brandon said, wincing. "But I'm still not totally thrilled with people I don't know being in my house on the day of the tour."

"I know. But I'll be acting as your tour guide. And we'll have people posted in most of the rooms to make sure nobody touches anything. How about Saturday after next for a workday to get the house shipshape?"

"Sure."

"You won't regret letting us use your house. Really. It'll be fun. And when we finish, it'll be all pretty. Won't that be nice?"

Great, he thought. The First Baptist Church is going to love it.

"You're opening this house up for a home tour?" Tom said. "Why the hell did you agree to that?"

Brandon shoved a pair of TV dinners into the microwave, set the timer, and turned it on. Then he sat down at the kitchen table with Tom. "I don't know. I wasn't going to, but then Alison was standing there looking up at me, and then..." He shrugged helplessly. "Then suddenly the words were coming out of my mouth."

"You're such a pushover." Tom went back to reading something on his phone. Then he stopped and looked up again. "Wait a minute. Since when are you a pushover?"

"I'm not."

"I didn't think so. I've never seen anybody negotiate the way you do-with a smile on your face and a knife behind your back. You don't give an inch of ground you don't intend to. So what's going on here?"

"Nothing's going on."

Tom stared at him a long time. Then a knowing look came over his face. "My God. You like her."

"Like who?"

"Uh...Alison?"

"Like her? Alison?" He shook his head wildly. "She's a client. That's all."

"No wonder you didn't like me staring at her when we saw her at McCaffrey's. You're hot for her. And you looked pretty cozy together when I showed up a minute ago."

Brandon frowned. "You are so off base."

"So you don't like her?"

"No! I mean, yeah. I like her. What's not to like? But I don't like her like that."

Tom grinned. "Ha! You sound like a teenage kid. 'I like her, but I don't know if she likes me, but my friend said she did, but if I like her and she doesn't like me-'"

"Oh, for God's sake," Brandon snapped. "Will you shut up?"

Tom smiled, then poked at his phone again. Silence, except for the infernal ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall that Brandon was ready to smash with a baseball bat.

"So why did you agreed to let her use your house?" Tom asked.

Brandon frowned. "It's for a good cause."

"Since when do you put philanthropy at the top of your list?"

He didn't. Not usually, anyway. At the very least, he certainly hadn't developed a sudden interest in the preservation of the historic buildings of Plano, Texas. And yet here he was doing this when he knew for a fact that it was only going to irritate him. Good God, what was wrong with him?

He didn't know. There was just something about Alison's unrelenting good nature and cheerful persuasion that made it almost impossible for him to say no to her. Sometime in the past few weeks, her happiness had become his happiness, and he couldn't understand why.

"All kidding aside," Tom said. "Watch getting too tangled up in this stuff when you're going to be out of here soon."