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was a welcoming sight. "Hi, Chance!"
    "Hey, Tim," he said warmly. "Good to see you again. Can I come in?" Gain entry, that's the
    ticket, and then on to the next phase.
    "Sure." "Tim stepped back from the door. "You here to see Mary?"
    Inside, Chance glanced around the spacious entry hall, heard the nearby whine of a vacuum and a
    deep female voice belting out show tunes. The decor was deceptively simple: a beautifully kept
    hardwood floor, tan rugs, cream-painted walls with dark wood trim. The effect was airy and
    homey.
    He made his body relax into an easy, non threatening posture. "Yes, but I'm not sure she wants to
    see me," he confided, putting a hand on Tim's bony shoulder. "Did you have a good time last
    night?"
    "Oh, sure, it was great! How's Cassie?" His eyes, large and clear sky blue like his sister's, were
    very bright. Chance kept his face bland.
    "Just fine. I talked to her this morning and she said to tell you hi. Is Mary around?"
    Tim appeared to deliberate. Chance kept his eyes steadily on the boy's gaze, waiting. Finally Tim
    shrugged. "She went up to her room. You want me to tell her you're here?"
    He hesitated, looking past the foyer to the stairway. "Well, I guess she knows that. Tim, do you
    have any idea what happened last night after the fireworks? You rode home with Victor and her,
    right?"
    "Yeah."
    "Did they talk much?"
    "Not on the ride home, but I went in as soon as we got here, and Mary came in later."
    "I see." He angled his jaw out, realized how that must look, and drew a breath. "She didn't say
    anything to you today?"
    "Only that I was supposed to say she wasn't home if anyone called."
    " Chance put his hands on his hips, thinking. What had happened in the car after Tim left? What
    did you .get up to, you son of a ... Did you tell some lies, Dr. Prentiss? Or some carefully twisted
    half-truths you may have plucked from the rumour mill? Or-:-.
    The sudden, jarring thought seized up his brain. Maybe Victor had seen his perfect, rosy future
    slipping away, and gotten off his duff and proposed to her. Oh, that would be rich, he thought
    bitterly. Victor realizes what a fool he's been, Mary realizes she really does care about him more
    than she thought. and they skip hand in hand to a swanky condo in the suburbs and throw gala
    parties for their prissy society friends.
    I'll be damned.
    He felt Tim's eyes on him, and forced a smile.
    "Think she'd mind if 1 just went on up?"
    "That's all right. I'll come down," said a very dignified voice from overhead. Tim and Chance
    both looked up. Mary stood ramrod straight at the top of the stairs. Her pale face was tense but
    composed, her eyes bleak. Her tawny hair was half-dried and floating around her narrow,
    delicate face in wavy tendrils and her bare legs were slender as a gazelle's. Chance's gaze fell to
    her hand as she clutched the banister; the knuckles were white. She looked so vulnerable, his
    breath caught.
    Mary was determined to follow through with the resolution she'd made in her room. She'd gotten
    herself into this mess; she should see her way through to getting out of it. Whatever Chance may
    or may not be, she was partly responsible for what had happened yesterday, and she owed him
    that much.
    It was far from easy, though. Clad in olive green fatigue pants and a black mesh top that hid none
    of the tanned, powerful bulges of his broad chest and shoulders, he held his tough, muscular
    body warily, as if ready to spring up the stairs at the slightest provocation. His face was hardened, mouth grim, and his unblinking eyes, by some trick of the angled afternoon sun,
    looked slanted and tigerish, lit from within.
    She gulped audibly. She had to go down and face that, and ten it she never wanted to see it again.
    The gulp turned to a scowl. What was it doing wanting to see her anyway? Couldn't it see that
    they were woefully mismatched? It needed to go pick on somebody its own size.
    She marched down the stairs, nodded to her brother, who hovered