"I was thinking of grabbing a drink," Zach said. "Would you like one?"

"Uh...yeah. Sure."

They walked to the cash bar, where a smiling bartender waited to take their order.

"What would you like?" Zach asked her.

She wanted a martini, but martini glasses were designed for maximum spillage.

Not good on a first date.

"Chardonnay," she said, then had the most terrible feeling he was going to order the same thing. Please don't order white wine, please don't order white wine...

"Vodka and tonic," he said.

She let out a silent sigh of relief. It wasn't Fat Tire ale, but on the heterosexuality scale, it was at least neutral. Not that there was anything wrong with gay men. She just couldn't see marrying one.

Zach paid for the drinks, leaving the bartender a nice tip, and then they strolled toward the exhibit.

"So you work for a nonprofit agency?" she said.

"Yeah. It's tough, though, with the economy and all. Charitable contributions are really down." He shook his head sadly. "But it's such a good cause. Our beneficiaries are saving lives every day. They could save more if only we could get more people to give."

That made Alison feel weirdly guilty, as if she should be cleaning the cash out of her wallet and handing it over.

"Brandon told me you're in marketing," Zach said. "That's very interesting."

Interesting? Did he mean truly interesting, as if he wanted to hear more? Or did he mean interesting in the way some people did when they were too polite to say it sounded boring or weird? She'd done that herself more than once, most recently on her first date with Randy when he told her he still had a closet full of Star Wars action figures.

Good Lord. Shouldn't she have pulled the plug on that relationship right then and there?

"Yes. I'm in marketing."

He smiled and nodded, but he probably hated that. After all, he worked for a nonprofit agency. He probably thought marketing was all about manipulating people into buying things they didn't need or even want, money that would be much better spent on philanthropic causes. Tweaking the packaging on a sugarfilled lump of empty calories was hardly in the same league as raising cash for cancer. Hell, Spangler's products probably caused cancer.

She waited for one of those judgmental eyebrow arches. She didn't see it, but that didn't mean he wasn't thinking it.

"A marketing company?" he asked. "Or the marketing department of a single company?

"I work for Spangler Sweets," she said.

"Ah," he said with a big smile. "Mallorific bars. I love those."

"Yeah, me too. They're my favorite."

She wasn't sure, but when she glanced away for a moment, she thought she saw his gaze go toward her hips. Just for a split second. One of those eye flicks you don't want somebody else to see. What was he doing? Checking for a few Mallorific bars bulging her hips from the inside out?

Then she heard a man's voice behind them. "Excuse me."

Alison turned around to see a toughlooking guy in a uniform. Oh, God. No, no, no! Here it came. In the span of a nanosecond, she imagined him grabbing Zach, slamming him against the wall, handcuffing him, and then dragging him away in a police car because he was an art thief or a forger or something equally vile, leaving her with nothing to do but plot murder for hire. And guess who the target would be? Was his name Brandon Scott?

But the man simply held out a wallet to Zach, a man she could see now was a gallery security guard, not a cop. "I think you left this at the bar."

"Oh!" Zach said, taking it from him. "Thank you."

The guard smiled. "You folks have a nice evening."

Okay. So maybe a SWAT team wasn't gathering outside preparing for an assault, but after Greg, she decided she'd better keep her guard up.

Zach nodded at a painting with random red, white, and black blobs. "What do you think of that one?"

She thought it looked as if a zebra had fallen into a blender, and then somebody had dug out the contents and slapped them onto a canvas.

"I'm afraid I don't know much about modern art," she said.

"Just think about how it makes you feel."

That was easy. Nauseated.

It was probably a trick question. As if there was a right answer, but she didn't have a chance in hell of coming up with it. He was probably an art snob trying to flush out an art moron.

"How does it make you feel?" she asked, seeing if she could do a little flushing of her own. She waited for him to say something about how the painting was a commentary on the magnificence of nature, or how it represented mankind crying out in a figurative wilderness, or maybe go the other way and say how tedious and pedestrian and altogether jejune it was and therefore not worthy of his time.

"Actually, it kinda makes me feel depressed," Zach said.

Alison blinked with surprise. Depressed? That was second on her list, right after nauseated. After all, a zebra had died for the cause. Maybe they had something in common after all?

After their casual stroll through the exhibit, they sat down to dinner at a nearby cafe. It was cozy and candlelit, which contributed to Alison's growing feeling that maybe this date really was going well. She tried to keep her hopeful thoughts at bay. After all, she'd been so sure about Greg, too, until they were fitting him for an orange jumpsuit. And David had seemed absolutely normal, right up to the opening ceremonies of the Psycho Games he was playing with his ex.

Stay on your toes.

But then, as dessert arrived, Zach knocked her right off her toes.

"I've had a wonderful time tonight, Alison," he said.

"Yeah," she said. "I have, too."

"I feel like we have a real connection," he said.

Alison started to fall right into a swoon, but caught herself at the last second. "Yes. I think we do, too."

"I thought we'd go out and have a good time. A few laughs. What I didn't count on..."

"What?"

"I didn't count on lightning striking."

Lightning striking. Her heart kathumped. This was good. This was big.

"You're the girl next door, Alison. And I mean that as a real compliment. I just want to have a normal life with a nice home and kids." He paused. "And a wonderful partner to share all of it with."

More kathumping, followed by some weird little fluttering thing that made her feel as if she just might pass out.

"And because you weren't really into all that modern art," he said, "I kinda hoped..."

"Yes?"

"That it means you're more traditional. That maybe you like antiques. My aunt died a year ago and left me some midcentury furniture. I've started reading up about it. I'd like to collect more."

"Yes. Yes! Me, too. I love antiques. Right now I'm living in a condominium, but one day I'd love to live in an older house. Someplace historic."

"That sounds great," Zach said, his smile so broad and so genuine that Alison want to grab his face and kiss him senseless.

My God, this man really is wonderful. And Brandon is wonderful for introducing me to him.

It had finally happened. She'd finally paid her karmic dues, and now there was nothing ahead but smooth sailing. The glass of white zinfandel she'd had with dinner had traveled north to cloud her eyes with the most pleasant rosy glow, and every time she blinked, things felt even more fluffy and wonderful. And when Zach reached across the table and took her hand, she knew she'd finally made it over the mountain. Not a damned thing she saw made her think there was any reason at all that- "Aaargh!" Zach yanked his hand away suddenly, clapping his hands to the side of his head as if he had the migraine of the century. Alison recoiled, her back slamming into the chair behind her.

"What's the matter?"

"I can't do this!"

"Do what?"

"Be with you one second longer without telling you!"

"Telling me what?"

Zach paused, gathering his thoughts, all of which Alison knew were going to cause this lovely date to go straight to hell. She tried really hard to tell herself he was only going to confess that he hadn't been able to quit smoking after all. But no. She could tell this was something more, and she did not want to hear it.

"See," he began, "back when I was a teenager..."

"No!" she said. "Here's the deal, Zach. Whatever you're getting ready to say, if you'll keep it to yourself, not just for now, but for eternity, I'll buy you a whole truckload of Marlboros. We can take up smoking together. Just you and me. Won't that be nice?"

He shook his head sadly. "Alison, Alison, Alison...that's what I like so much about you. You have such a wonderful sense of humor."

He thought she was being funny? Oh, hell, no. She'd risk lung cancer ten times over to avoid hearing what he was about to tell her.

But, damn it, he told her, anyway. And just like that, one more date had gone to hell.

And Brandon was going to hear all about it.

Chapter 16.

Brandon took a sip of his beer and tried to concentrate on the game he and Tom were watching on the TV over the bar at McCaffrey's. It was a battle he was losing. All evening he'd been imagining Zach quivering through his date with Alison. His hands trembling. And finally he wouldn't be able to take it anymore. He'd pull out a Marlboro, light it, take a deep drag, and blow out the smoke in a long, satisfying exhalation. Then, months after quitting cold turkey, he'd start chain-smoking again like a prison inmate.

Prison? Good Lord, don't even think it.

No. He had to stop worrying. Instead, he closed his eyes and visualized Alison telling him how wonderful Zach was. Ahh. That was much better than her beating on his door to tell him what a disaster their date had been. This was going to be her perfect date, leading to her perfect man, leading to her perfect life.

All at once, Tom smacked him on the arm. Brandon's eyes shot open wide. "Hey! What are you-"

"Here comes trouble."

Brandon whipped around to see Alison walk through the door. For a split second he hoped for the best. Then he saw the look on her face. A woman with first date infatuation wouldn't be striding toward him with that crazed expression, as if she'd been to hell and back and had barely lived to tell the tale.

Brandon turned on his bar stool. She stopped in front of him. With a deep, angry breath, she smacked her purse down on the bar and skewered him with an angry glare. "You weren't home. I figured I'd find you here."

He braced himself. "Uh, yeah. Here I am."

"Brandon? Do you know what the definition of comedy is?"

He had no idea where she was going with this. He only knew he didn't want to go there with her. "What?"

"Comedy is pain. Plus time."

"Uh...I don't get it."

"What it means," she said, "is that maybe sometime in the far, far future, perhaps when I'm approximately ninety years old, I might look back on what happened tonight and laugh."

"So it was...funny?" he asked hopefully.

"Will you pay attention?" she snapped. "Have sixty years passed since I went out with Zach?"

"Uh...no."

"Then it's not funny yet, is it?"

"Hard to say," Tom said. "Comedy's like that. What's tragic to one person might be really funny to another. I read an article in Scientific Mind about the way people process-"

Both Alison and Brandon turned to glare at him.

"Uh...I think I'll go play pool now."

Tom grabbed his beer and slid off the stool. Alison climbed onto it. She looked over at Tony, who was working behind the bar. "Hey, Tony!"

Tony looked over his shoulder, and the moment he saw the look on Alison's face, his usual congenial smile vanished. "Yeah?"

"Bring me a vodka martini. And keep them coming until I tell you to stop or I lose consciousness, whichever comes first."

Tony flicked his gaze to Brandon. I don't think I'd want to be you right now. Brandon gave him a look in return. I don't want to be me, either.