Free While She Was Sleeping... by Isabel Sharpe Page B

before.”
    “And then I fell right into the stereotype that first night.”
    “Yeah, kind of.” She ate another bite of cereal, then put the spoon down. “One thing…”
    “Ye-e-es?”
    “You said you remember what happened. Between us. That night.”
    “Ohh, yes.”
    Her body reacted as if he’d touched her. His voice was so…
    Steady, Alana. “You really thought I was someone else?”
    “Uh, yeah.” He sighed deeply, though she could tell he was still enjoying himself. She wondered if he ever didn’t. He seemed like the kind of man who grabbed life by the glass half-full and hung on. Probably not hard to do when you were born into stability and got to stay there. “I remember nothing after leaving the party. When I came to in bed with you, it was dark. I assumed you were the woman I’d been talking to at the party. She’d been very…friendly.”
    Alana sent him a look of schoolmarm disapproval which made him chuckle, which made her feel as if she’d won the lottery.
    “I put pieces together and decided I’d brought her—i.e., you —home and that we’d been at it all night, I just didn’t remember.” His voice dropped lower. “Given how good you looked and felt next to me, I wanted to make sure there’d be something I would remember.”
    “Oh…I see.” She really needed to concentrate on Raisin Bran or she’d turn into mush and pour onto the floor.
    “But when I couldn’t wake you up, it seemed selfish and vaguely perverted to satisfy myself, so I just—”
    “Yes, I know.”
    “And now…” He grinned wickedly. “You owe me.”
    “What?” She stopped melting instantly, stiffened in her chair. “You can’t be serious.”
    “Alana.”
    He’d gotten her. Again. Once more, she was walking theSawyer tightrope, always about to fall off one side or the other. “Right. You were kidding.”
    “I’m sorry.” He gave her an unbearably sexy sidelong look. “I’ve been teasing you too much. But it’s been a long time since anyone thought I was trouble and it’s kind of fun.”
    “For you, maybe.”
    “C’mon, you’re not loving every minute of your time with me?”
    She was, that was the problem. “I have decided you’re an okay guy.”
    “Something in particular tipped you off?”
    “Melanie promises you’ve been telling the truth. And I can sort of piece together what you said and make sense of it. And she said you…can afford to live here.”
    He moved uncomfortably. “Oh. Yeah. That.”
    “You didn’t want me to know?”
    “It’s more fun when people don’t.”
    “Why?”
    “Assumptions.” The playful look was fading from his face. “Those snap judgments you love so much.”
    She nodded, slid off the stool and took her unfinished cereal to the sink, afraid she was about to discover he was such a good guy that he didn’t want to be associated with the immediately—though shallowly—appealing aspects of wealth and power, that he wanted people to judge him for who he was, not what he had or represented.
    Sawyer Kern was starting to seem too good to be true. Not in a choir-boy way, not at all, because he had that mischievous sense of humor and bad-boy sexuality spicing up what appeared to be solid character. Maybe even depth. A fabulous and rare combination.
    Which meant he was perfect for Melanie.
    Which meant the only thing Alana would accomplish by staying was to get in the way of her sister’s happiness.

6
    “W HERE ARE YOU taking me?” Melanie followed Edgar down Water Street in the Third Ward, an area of old factories and warehouses reclaimed and reinvented as shops, theaters and restaurants. They’d passed the galleries and funky furniture stores, and were headed, as far as she could tell, for the Milwaukee River. Just before they reached the bridge, Edgar stopped in front of one last small building on the west side of the street which housed a wig shop.
    “You’re buying Emma a wig for her birthday?”
    He gave her a look and opened a door to the