Chapter 6

IBN 6:30 World News report—Marsha Phillips

"... and that's the news for this Tuesday. Before we sign off, I'd like to thank everyone on behalf of Pete Cooper for the letters, telegrams and home remedies that have been pouring in. As we said before, it's a simple case of laryngitis, and we hope Pete will be back next week."

"Where did you learn to kiss like that?"

Brooke looked over from where she was trying her best to read the New Orleans street map. "What?"

Pete never took his gaze off the rush-hour traffic on Highway 10. The rain the day before hadn't cooled things off at all. There was a fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead, even with the air-conditioning on, and Brooke could tell he was battling a headache from the glare that was getting worse as the sun settled toward the city.

"I said, where did you learn to kiss like that?"

"Like what? Are you sure your friend's expecting us?"

"Alex was delighted. There's plenty of room, and we go back a long way."

"So do you and I, and I'm not sure I'd put you and a strange woman up in my house on four-hours notice."

Pete's grin was enigmatic. "Which is probably why I've never asked."

Brooke snorted unkindly and went back to trying to draw a line from their position to Saint Charles Avenue in the Garden District. "That's because you never had the nerve to take your own medicine."

This time he did turn. "My own medicine? What are you talking about?"

Brooke slid her sunglasses far enough down her nose so he couldn't possibly miss her expression. "The gauntlet."

"The gauntlet?" he retorted with outrage. "Oh, come on. That was great stuff. You loved it."

"I had four dates run screaming from the house never to be heard from again."

"Just as well. They couldn't stand a little friendly interest..."

"Interrogation."

"David was being protective."

"You two were being jerks. I'll never forgive you for my first formal."

Now his expression was the soul of sincere confusion. "What did we do then?"

"There I was," she answered, "dressed up for the first time in my life. I had my hair done down at Luella's shop and my mama bought me my first long dress—you remember, that flowered thing with the hoopskirt and the ruffles. And I walked down those stairs like Cinderella to the ball."

"And we were there for support."

"Oh, really? Is that why you said, 'You don't mean to tell me you're going out dressed like that?'"

Pete ventured one look over at Brooke. Then he burst out laughing. After a proper pause, so did Brooke. It had been funny, the kind of teasing only close siblings and friends inflicted on each other. Her date had damn near picked her corsage apart from nerves after having to stand down in the living room with those two and two of their other friends lobbing questions at him like artillery shells, but Brooke would have missed them had they not been there to send her off.

"You haven't told me yet."

Her eyes were back on the grid of names. "What?"

"Where you learned to kiss like that."

"Just because my relationships didn't work doesn't mean they didn't have some good points," was all she'd say. Brooke hoped that Pete didn't notice that her fingers had suddenly begun to tremble. She didn't want him to bring up what had happened right now. After the wonderful afternoon they'd had with the Bishops, and the long drive down through Louisiana spent playing Name That Historical Figure—any competition was better than none—she'd thought he might have, well, not necessarily forgotten what had happened out on that road, maybe just misplaced it.

She sure hadn't. She'd spent the night before sweating through more sleeplessness, caught between the innocence of a six-year-old's room and the frustration of a twenty-six-year-old's very neglected hormones.

If she were completely honest, Brooke had to admit that the experience wasn't exactly a novel one, even though twice in two nights was a bit much. After all, she'd wanted Pete even before she'd known what it meant, back when his sharp smile was all it took to send her heart skidding and her imagination into overdrive. But Pete and Brooke were meant to be best friends, the kind who shared history without needing to share life-styles. They could forget to call each other for months, and when they picked up the phone, the other was expecting it. No hassle, no ritual, no muss. The right words, or no words at all. A soft shoulder and a strong back.

But not a lover. That would have been asking too much. It would have shattered the fragile equilibrium of their relationship and sullied their implicit trust. Lovers had other agendas, and Brooke knew better after all this time than to want that.

Or maybe she wanted what she had so much that she could think of very little that was worth jeopardizing it. Even being Pete's lover.

Especially being Pete's lover.

It didn't stop her from sweating.

"You surprised me," he admitted, his voice curiously serious.

Brooke fought the urge to look over for verification. "I surprised you?" she demanded. "I do not believe I was the perpetrator of surprises yesterday, Mr. Cooper."

His chuckle was rueful and dark. "Oh, yes you were, Stump old buddy. You grew up."

That brought Brooke's heart almost to a dead standstill. "Don't be silly, Coop. I've had breasts since I was twelve. You were still in town then."

"You didn't have those breasts," he accused.

She actually looked down, as if to verify the truth. "Well, whose breasts did I have?"

Again he shook his head. "Having breasts doesn't make you an adult. It doesn't mean you've learned those... those things that make a man..." But he didn't finish.

Brooke was sure she didn't want him to. This conversation was not one that should be held in a small sports car on another hot, close day. It put her suddenly too close to Pete, so that she wanted to squirm, to scoot away from the memory of how good he'd tasted and felt. How she knew he'd taste right now, with that tang of salt on his upper lip.

So she laughed away her discomfort. "I never learned those things," she protested. "If I had, I'd have fewer pals and more suitors."

"If you never learned those things," he retorted, his attention ostensibly on driving, both hands tight around the wheel, "why did I spend last night dreaming about you? Very vivid dreams, I might add."

Those words caught in Brooke's throat like bad food, like the queasiness of sudden dislocation. This wasn't the way the trip was supposed to happen. They were supposed to tease and abuse each other, just like always, physical and easy. They weren't supposed to be rewriting the ground rules only three days past seeing each other again. They weren't supposed to change.

Especially like this.

"Because I have breasts," she suggested dryly, hoping he didn't hear the awful catch in her voice. "Whoever's I've managed to abscond with. And if there's one thing I've learned about you over the years, you'd follow a decent set into a spitting volcano just to introduce yourself."

"Brooke—" He looked over, his own thoughts protected behind his mirrored glasses, those creases of concern back. She wasn't sure what he was about to say, but she saw the impulse die. "Where do we exit to get to Alex's?"

What had he wanted? she wondered. What had he been about to say? Brooke wiped damp palms against her slacks and picked the map back up, wishing her chest would clear, her heart slow. Wishing most desperately of all that the whispers of those old dreams would die, would fade right back into puberty where they belonged.

"We have about five miles left to the city," she said. "After that, I'll have to keep an eye on exits. Does Alex have a wife? Maybe we'd better stop for flowers or something."

Finally Pete managed a smile, and Brooke felt the surprising tension ease. "No," he admitted. "Alex doesn't have a wife."

"Well," she said, "I hope they live near a women's store. I need some underwear."

* * *

"That is Alex?" Brooke demanded an hour later as they pulled to a stop inside the wrought-iron fence that surrounded the Bellermain home on Saint Charles.

Pete pulled off his sunglasses and stretched a little before reaching for the door. "Don't sound so surprised. You'll like her a lot."

Beside him, Brooke made a very rude noise. "You could have at least told me she looks like a beauty contestant."

"Miss America runner-up, 1978," he allowed, just to hear her groan. She hit him instead.

It was amazing to Pete, especially after seeing Brooke handle herself at the funeral, at the Badger Bar. She'd developed the most instinctive grace, a dignity that simply couldn't be taught—and he'd been around some newswomen who had tried their damnedest. She had taste and style and a tongue that would have had William Buckley in tears. And yet she still had a miserable self-image.

Why should she have been so surprised that he'd be physically attracted to her? She'd grown into a beauty. Not a classic beauty, certainly, like Alex with her award-winning cheekbones and sloe eyes. But a serene strength, an intangible that composed those great blue eyes and overripe mouth into a whole package worth more than the sum of its parts.

He'd known his share of women. He'd married one of the most beautiful. But he couldn't remember ever feeling the warm comfort he had out in that field, wrapping his hands into Brooke's sodden, limp hair and sinking into her mouth like a familiar bed.

"Peter, sugar," Alex greeted him with outstretched arms, a leggy African-American with flawlessly elegant features, legendary figure and a comfortable job with one of the local television affiliates, negotiated from the strength of her swimsuit scores from '78. Alex had been Miss Congeniality, beating out even Miss Texas with her bubbly personality. A canny woman rather than an intellectual one. Today she must have decided to assume her Voodoo Queen persona, dressed in a flowing purple-and-gold caftan, bare feet and huge hoop earrings, her hair pulled back into a severe bun to accentuate her features.

Pete climbed out of the car and smiled for her, an eye always to Brooke's reaction. She was standing a little behind him, quiet and passive. Observing. Marshaling forces.

"Alex, you poor starving waif," he answered, and gathered the woman into a hug, as always enjoying the scent and feel of her. Suddenly, surprisingly, he realized that marshmallows weren't really his craving after all. He was more in the mood for something tart. Something that demanded more than shut eyes and an empty stomach.

"Alex," he announced, pulling back far enough to include Brooke in the picture, "this is Brooke Ferguson. Brooke, Alexandra St. Claire. Alex and I go way back to my New York days when we were news virgins together."

The two women assessed each other with bright smiles and careful posture.

"Pete, darlin'," Alex said with great satisfaction. "You know how I feel about having a beautiful woman under my roof."

"The competition's good for you," he assured her, dropping a final kiss on her forehead before stepping away from her to go for his bags. "Did you manage to get the funeral arranged?"

Alex turned her full attention on Brooke, who still stood a bit stiffly beside the car. "Course I did. Would Alex disappoint you? Now, Brooke, I have to say, darlin', that's an intriguing outfit you're wearin'. I haven't seen a woman wear men's pants so well since Hepburn, darlin'. How do you do it?"

Pete saw that Brooke's smile was a shade cautious as she instinctively drew herself up to full height, making his faded blue T-shirt stretch quite nicely over her figure. "I got caught in a tornado and lost all my own clothes. These are Pete's."

Alex threw back her head and laughed with sincere delight. "Doesn't it figure?" she demanded, hands on hips in mock outrage. "I'd work a week to try and look that good. Now then, have you ever been to the Big Easy before?"

"Not in a few years," Brooke replied, the tone of her voice and her posture reminding Pete very much of the funeral. On exhibit. Putting on the facade, just like Mamie had taught her, that almost regal grace wrapped around her like a cloak to protect her from the threat of Alex's exotic beauty.

Pete caught himself wanting to shake his head. He was going to have to talk to that girl. The first thing she had to realize was that Alex never would have gone to the trouble of teasing him about bringing a beautiful woman if that hadn't been what she'd seen. It took a lot to impress Alex, who wasn't even impressed by her own looks.

Almost as if she'd already forgotten Pete, Alex floated right over to Brooke and slid an arm through hers. "In that case, we must make the most of however long that skinflint lets you stay. You like to go to Galatoire's, or Antoine's maybe?"

"We can't," Pete immediately protested, head popping up from where he was emptying the trunk of its remaining contents. "I'm supposed to be sick in bed in Rupert Springs, Arkansas."

Alex waved him away. "Oh, pooh. Rene will be home soon," she announced, still to Brooke, who followed along in a silence Pete couldn't interpret. "Now, mind you, don't steal him away from me. He goes all weak-kneed for redheads, that one does. Especially ones with legs as long as yours..."

Pete finally found Brooke again about an hour later after the maid had guided him to the upstairs rooms to deposit the luggage. The home Alex shared with Rene Bellermain was a big old Victorian with high, echoing rooms and colonnaded balconies in the back that overlooked a lush garden complete with magnolias, oaks, fan palms and rhododendrons. Even set along the Saint Charles trolley line, the house was private, well shaded and as elegant as its owners.

The temperatures still hovered in the damp eighties, but Pete found the women already in the garden, the setting sun striking fire from Brooke's hair. She and Alex were lounging on the patio with tall, very cool-looking drinks in their hands.

"I hear you still have the kiss of death, darlin'," Alex greeted him as he stepped out into the lengthening shade.

He decided not to answer until he'd taken a good taste of the third drink that waited on the wrought-iron table between the two women.

With the bite of rum and exotic juices washing away some of his headache, he settled into a chair and tilted his head back a little. "You heard about the tornado, huh?"

Brooke was squinting over at him. "Alex says you're notorious for this kind of thing. That there was a pool going in Saudi Arabia that the Hilton would get hit just 'cause you stayed there."

Pete shrugged. No use denying the infamous.

"You never told me these amusing little stories," she admonished. "It might have been a thoughtful thing to do before you offered to go on this jaunt with me... especially considering what's happened so far."

Pete did his own squinting. "I didn't offer anything," he retorted, thinking that Alex was right. Brooke shouldn't have looked so cool and pretty after driving around all day in his clothes. "I was kidnapped and threatened."

Alex's laugh was deep and musical. "What threat could possibly work on Pete Cooper?"

Brooke's smile was not in the least charitable. "Two elderly aunts. Alex has been telling me some very interesting Peter Cooper stories," she said, obviously to him.

He deliberately closed his eyes, ignoring them both.

"And Brooke," Alex countered, "has been doing quite the same. I wish I'd known you while you were still a bad boy, sugar. You have always been too much of a gentleman around me."

"That's because Rene's meaner than I am."

"Not meaner," a sleek baritone offered from the doorway. "Just better looking."

All three of the garden's occupants turned to find the voice's owner striding out to join them.

Another person who looked too cool and collected on a day straight out of a sauna, Pete thought, climbing to his feet to greet his host. Rene was holding out a tanned hand, his smile sharp and sincere.

"I might have known I'd find you here with the women," he greeted Pete with the original article in French accents. Born and raised in Paris, Rene had met Alex in New York and moved with her to New Orleans, content to follow her career, since his moved with him. A slightly built man a good four inches shorter than his lady love, Rene embodied everything that was French style and charm.

Pete was genuinely glad to see the businessman. "Call me a glutton for punishment," he acknowledged easily, shaking Rene's hand. "How are you, Rene?"

He got a Gallic shrug, another smile and the kind of handshake that betrayed the Frenchman's power. Pete would have made introductions. He was turning to do it, as a matter of fact. Rene beat him to it with one wave of his hand, as if words would only interfere with his attention as he turned his gaze on Brooke.

The smile that lit his face was genuine and heartfelt. And purely, fatally, French. Reaching out both hands to a stupefied Brooke, Rene pulled her gently to her feet and then looked at her the way a museum attendee would examine a Rembrandt.

Pete saw the blush start at the base of Brooke's throat and creep higher the longer Rene looked. Pete knew she would be helpless with this kind of scrutiny. Far more experienced women than she had admitted to finding themselves weak-kneed with Rene's singular attention. Brooke looked very much like a baby bunny caught in the approach of a bright light.

Pete was surprised by his own reaction. He wanted to protect her, to pull a supportive arm around her.

He wanted to belt Rene, and that had never happened before.

"Bonjour, ma jolie fille," Rene finally greeted her, her hands firmly in both of his, her cheeks pink with the scrutiny, her eyes wide. "It is a rare pleasure to welcome you to my home." And then, his gaze never leaving her face, he bent to kiss the knuckles on her hands. "Has Alex told you that I have a weakness for beautiful redheads?"

"She also told me you're a wonderful liar," Brooke managed with a humor that defused every bit of tension.

Rene threw back his head and laughed. Alex smiled like a mother. And Pete, easing back into his chair as the four of them settled in for drinks, saw Brooke turn suddenly brittle and look at him with exhilarated eyes. He smiled for her, amused by her surprise, reassured by her presence of mind. Jealous as hell that his best buddy would look like that after one lousy compliment from a slick Frenchman with a thousand-dollar suit and lifts in his shoes.

Pete hadn't thought much about what he'd expected from this trip, other than settling Mamie into her next life. He realized as he watched Rene monopolize Brooke's conversation and attend her like an acolyte, that he was going to have to change that situation. That, actually, the situation had already changed on him sometime during those years he'd been away. He was just going to have to decide what the hell to do about it. And soon.

* * *

"Coop?"

Pete rolled over on his back at the tentative whisper. It was well toward morning, the moon up and the traffic slowed to a mutter along the street. Pete had said good-night to Brooke at her bedroom door next to his at about one and had then gone on into his room to toss and turn in yet another futile attempt at sleep. She evidently wasn't having any more luck than he.

"Are you awake?" she whispered from the open doorway, the moonlight that spilled in through the long window washing her legs and leaving the rest in shadow. Pete did see that the T-shirt he'd lent her until she could replace her own nightie skimmed the tops of her thighs and gently hugged the rest. It made him wonder why she'd never looked like this all the times they'd gone swimming and she'd strolled around in similar attire. If she'd looked like this back then, they never would have made it to the pool.

"Yeah, Stump," he answered, pulling himself into a sitting position. "I'm up. What's wrong?"

Her arms were wrapped around her belly and her head was down a little so that her hair tumbled around her shoulders, the frail moonlight gleaming on it like a dark waterfall. She padded barefoot across the floor. Pete made room for her on the bed, but she walked by as if she hadn't seen him, to stand by the window.

"I can't sleep."

The moonlight again. This time it found her throat and kissed it, a sleek, soft wash of silver that drew Pete's eyes like a prospector's. He wished suddenly that she wouldn't stand like that, that she'd move her arms. She was pulling the material of his old, soft Hard Rock shirt across her breasts, outlining them in too-familiar detail and making his fingers itch.

Quickly he looked away, back down to where his hands still lay atop the sheet.

"Would you tell me something?" she asked, and suddenly, because he couldn't see her, he heard the thirteen-year-old Brooke. Uncertain, shy, chin out in blind challenge.

"Sure," was all he could offer, still unsure what she wanted.

"Is Rene serious?"

That brought his attention back around to find that she'd turned her gaze on him, her eyes hidden in the shadows, her brow pursed, the line of her arms tight.

"About what?" he asked, wishing he knew what she wanted. Wishing like hell she didn't look so damn vulnerable asking for it—especially when she also looked so beautiful here at the whispery edge of morning. "His cooking? His career? The position of France in the world?"

She actually flinched, a small movement, no less intense. And then she dipped her head even further, unable to face him. "Me."

So that was it. Good old Stump, her insecurities let loose in the dark, her self-image still at odds with her actions.

Sighing, Pete climbed out of bed. It didn't really occur to him that he was clad only in his gym shorts. Brooke had seen them before. Pete's first thought was simply that she looked much too forlorn standing there with only the moonlight to keep her company.

"Stump," he admonished, taking her shoulders in his hands. "What am I going to do with you?"

She didn't lift her head, but she smiled, a soft, tremulous smile that no one else would have been privileged to. "I just can't stand the idea that I'm being made fun of."

Pete actually gave her a little shake. "Do you mean that the entire time Rene was playing seek out the pulse points with your wrists, you were thinking he was setting you up?"

She shrugged. "It's happened before."

"In Rupert Springs, Arkansas. When you were fifteen."

"And sixteen and seventeen. I get propositions from truckers on parole, Coop, not internationally situated French businessmen. Not..."

"Not me?"

Her head came up, and Pete saw that he hadn't been the only one spending sleepless nights. In those beautiful eyes of hers, he saw the miserable uncertainty she never would have allowed anyone else to witness.

"You'd better not proposition me," she tried her best to tease, her voice tremulous, her chin out.

"You'd better be surprised if I didn't," he retorted, his fingers tightening around her arms, his anger surprising him. "Didn't you listen to anything Mamie taught you?"

"Mamie loved me," she argued, and suddenly Pete saw tears in her eyes and didn't know what to do about them. "Just like my mom and dad. Only Mamie insisted that I could be beautiful if I believed I could. Mom and Dad just settled for 'You'll always be stately, Brooke.' Well, stately's nice if you're a historical home. It stinks when you're looking for somebody with the guts to take you to the movies."

"Stately," Pete snarled with a shake of his head. "Stately."

She lifted her face, thrusting out that old belligerent chin at him. "Yes, damn it," she snapped.

Pete couldn't even form the words to tell her how patently ridiculous she was. He couldn't begin to explain to her why her blossoming into womanhood would have intimidated every living soul in Rupert Springs, those sweet, sincere, straightforward people who wouldn't know an original work of art if it were handed to them by Michelangelo himself.

He couldn't convince her that what she had become far outshone anything in her experience—in his experience, damn it, and he'd had a sight more than she had.

Finally all he could do was drag her along when he turned for the door.

"Coop—"

"Shut up," he commanded, swinging the door closed and then turning her before him so that the two of them faced the mirror at the far end of the room. They reflected in it like phantoms, Brooke's face wide open beneath his, his almost ferocious in the half-light. "I'll show you stately," he said, letting go of her shoulders to take hold of her wrists.

"What are you—"

"I said shut up." He pulled her hands straight up over her head. Never giving her the chance to protest, he reached for the hem of the T-shirt and swept it right up and off, leaving her in nothing but a scrap of panties.

"Pete!" she protested on a rasp, her arms already moving to cover herself.

He grabbed them. "Look," he commanded, trapping her between his hands, forcing her to face herself in the mirror where she stood, her back against his chest, her head down.

"I can't."

He didn't waste words on her, just let go of one arm enough to cup her chin in his hand and force it up. "I said look, damn it. We'll start from the top down, and I am going to show you exactly why Rene was speaking French in your ear all during the salad course."

"Oh, Coop, he didn't..."

"Your hair," he said, the hand that had held her chin lifting to the dark treasure of curls that framed her face like a midnight sun. "Your hair is gorgeous, Brooke. It's a color I've never seen before, a dark, rich auburn that reflects sunlight like copper ore. It makes a man want to touch it, to run his fingers through it and get all tangled up in the curls."

She tried to squirm, but he held her still. "Please don't..."

He anchored his fingers in her hair and kept her face to the mirror. "Your eyes," he went on, reacquainting himself with them. "You have eyes like a lake. They're so deep and blue that a man could blind himself on them. And you laugh with your eyes so that you have a couple of crow's-feet. Very sexy. You have skin the color of pale cream and a mouth that's damn near as soft as down. Kissing you is—"

"You've already demonstrated that, thanks." The tone of her voice was dry, but there was a tremor in it. She'd stopped squirming to get away.

Pete swept her hair back from her neck. "Your throat. Long and graceful, a good hand's width so a man can slide his fingers right down it, and the skin's so soft it's like losing yourself in silk."

He showed her, just to make sure she knew. He kept his eyes on her, forcing her to see herself for what she was, for what he knew she was capable of. Mamie hadn't been wrong. And he'd been hotfooting it all over the world rather than taking two days out to go home and find out.

"Your breasts..."

His voice had unaccountably begun to tremble, as well. His hand, so at ease against her throat, had stilled atop her shoulder. His eyes hadn't.

"Now you say they're mine?" she asked, her eyes finally following his, her skin suddenly just a little damp.

"Look at them, Brooke," he commanded, his voice a rasp, his hand beginning to slip. "They're enough to make a man ache. Full and high, with nipples the color of fresh roses. You might have had breasts at twelve, but they weren't these breasts. The kind of breasts that make a man fantasize about what they'd feel like in his hands."

Her nipples had hardened to tight buds with just his words, his gaze. Full, firm breasts that beckoned even more without the barrier of covering. Pete saw them in the dimness, an impression of lushness and responsiveness, curves and shadows and aching invitation.

He accepted.

"I don't think—" Brooke managed, her eyes wider still, her body suddenly very still as his other hand crept up to capture her other breast "—that 'a... a demonstration is necessary—"

"You're twenty-six," he answered, his attention torn, wondering what he'd set out to do, wondering if he'd thought about it. Knowing that if he had, he never would have risked temptation like this. She was so warm against him, her body so lithe and supple and sweet, her breasts heavy and full in his hands. "You still don't believe that you're beautiful. I had to do something."

"I'm not beautiful."

His smile was taut with control. "Then I'm not finished, am I?"

She swayed in his hold, her eyes briefly closing, opening, impossibly dark and deep. He ached suddenly to kiss those eyes closed, to taste her skin and tangle himself in those molten curls.

His hands slid farther, down her flat torso, to her belly, to where he pulled her back against him to discover in the most graphic terms just how beautiful, how desirable she was.

"Rene would have been blind, deaf and dead to not have tried to hit on you," he whispered just before he dipped to kiss the back of her neck.

He'd caught her completely to him, his one hand wrapped around her hips, his other still cupping her breast, tormenting the nipple to even stiffer attention, his body seeking to surround her.

She was beginning to soften to him, her head up, her body supple and eager against his. He could smell her, soap and shampoo and the faint musk of woman. He could taste the first tang of perspiration on her skin. He could imagine her tumbled on his bed, her hair a glorious riot against those once-crisp white sheets, her eyes languorous, her body dancing with his.

And then, suddenly, she pulled away. Her breathing shallow, her heart racing, her expression wild and haunted, that little rabbit on the run. Facing him with accusation in her eyes.

"What's the matter?" he asked, allowing her her distance.

She shuddered, not remembering now to cover herself with her arms, tears glinting in those great, deadly eyes. "Don't do this to me."

"Do what?" he asked. "Want you?"

She drew herself up tall, obviously not realizing how much more alluring it made her look. "Yes."

"Why, because you don't think you deserve it? Because I've known you since you were in braces and Clearasil?"

"Because you're my friend, damn it. You're the last person I can depend on, and that—" she flung an arm out in an uncertain direction, as if nailing his arousal to a point on the floor. "That would change everything."

Pete allowed an eyebrow to rise, since she obviously wasn't ready for anything else to. "How would it change it?"

Her eyes filled again, glittering in the darkness, stark and lost. "It would ruin it. It would bury it under hormones and expectations and regrets."

"How do you know we'd regret anything?"

She impaled him on the truth. "Have you ever had a lover you could really tell the truth to? Did you tell Alicia the things you told me you wanted to say to her?"

Pete knew there should be an answer to that, a sharp, succinct retort that would put that kind of logic right into its proper place. Maybe if Brooke hadn't been standing almost naked in front of him, half temptress, half child. Maybe if he hadn't been as surprised by their mutual attraction as she.

Maybe if she hadn't been telling the truth.

"You're the only person," she said, her voice soft with hurt, "the only person in the world I can really talk to. The only one who knows just where all my warts are and doesn't give a damn, who doesn't expect more of me than I can give, and is always there with a soft shoulder and a wisecrack to make me feel better. And maybe I haven't had quite the experience as you, but I've found that trading that in for sex usually isn't worth it."

Before Pete had a chance to answer, Brooke scooped up her T-shirt from the floor and dropped it over her head.

"Damn it, Coop," she demanded, eyes glittering. "How can I talk to you about my lousy love life if you are my lousy love life?"

She left him to the moonlight and silence without letting him vent his frustration or challenge her accusation.

Which was probably just as well. After all, she was right.

After that, the jazz funeral the next day was something of an anticlimax.