“You brought me back here to talk about Malory’s obsession with kitchen appliances?”

“No. I wanted cookies. Malory has this rule against eating them in bed. This is something else I can’t figure,” he continued as he got a bag of Chips Ahoy out of the cupboard. “But I’m an easygoing guy. You want milk?”

“No.”

His friend was wearing gray sweats and a T-shirt that might have been new during his sophomore year of college. His feet were bare, his expression easy.

Looks, Jordan knew, could be very deceiving.

“And you’re not easygoing, Hennessy. You pretend to be easygoing so you can get your own way.”

“I’m not eating these in bed, am I?”

“Small potatoes, son. You got the woman in your bed.”

“Yeah.” Grinning, Flynn poured a glass of milk, then sat down, stretched out his legs. “I do. Of course, she’s up there reading instead of offering me intriguing and varied sexual favors, but I can bide my time.”

Jordan sat. Flynn, he knew from long experience, would get to his point eventually. “So, you want to talk about your sex life? Is this going to be a bragging session, or are you looking for advice?”

“I’d rather do it than brag about it, and I’m doing just fine on my own. But thanks for the offer.” He dunked a cookie. “So, how’s Dana?”

And there would be the point, Jordan thought. “A little anxious about the task at hand, I’d say, but diving in headfirst. You must have seen the mountain range of books she’s hiking through when you dropped off Moe.”

“Yeah, I got eyestrain just thinking about reading half of them. And otherwise?”

“It looks like she’s steadied herself after what happened to her the other night. She may be spooked by it, but she’s just as curious. You know how she is.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

“Why don’t you just ask me how things are with us?”

“And pry into your private and personal lives? Me?”

“Up yours, Hennessy.”

“Wow, that was so creative, so succinct. I immediately see why you’re a successful novelist.”

“Sideways.” And though he had absolutely no desire for one, Jordan pulled a cookie from the bag. “I screwed up with her, all those years ago. ‘I’m going, it’s been fun, see you around.’ ”

It caused a low burn in his gut to remember it now.

“Maybe not that cut and dried, but close enough.” He bit into the cookie as he studied his friend’s face. “Did I screw up with you, too?”

“Maybe some.” Flynn nudged Malory’s pretty candle aside so he could move the cookie bag between them. “I can’t say I didn’t feel a little deserted when you took off, but I got why you had to leave. Hell, I was planning on doing the same myself.”

“The business exec, the struggling writer, and the dedicated reporter. Hell of a trio.”

“Yeah, we all got there, too, didn’t we? One way or the other. I never left the Valley to do it, but I thought I was going to, so I could look at you, and Brad, as sort of the advance guard. But then again, I wasn’t sleeping with you.”

“She was in love with me.”

Flynn waited a beat, absorbed the baffled frustration on Jordan’s face. “What, did that lightbulb just go off? You’ve got some faulty wiring in there, pal.”

“I knew she loved me.” Disgusted, Jordan shoved up to get a glass of milk after all. “Hell, Flynn, we all loved each other. We were as much family as any who share blood. I didn’t know it was the big L for her. How the hell is a guy supposed to know that sort of thing unless the woman looks him in the eye and says, ‘I’m in love with you, you ass**le.’ Which would,” he continued, working up to fury, “have been something you’d expect from Dana. That’s just how she does things. But she didn’t, so I didn’t know. And I’m the slug because of it.”

Because he’d been concerned by Jordan’s steady cool, the spike of temper relieved him. “Yeah, but you’re a slug for a lot of reasons. I could write up a list.”

“The one I’d write up on you would be longer,” Jordan muttered.

“Great, a contest.” Not just angry, Flynn noted as he studied Jordan’s face, but unhappy. Still, it had to be finished out, had to be said.

“Look, when Lily dumped me and took off for fame and fortune in the big bad city, it hurt. And I wasn’t in love with her. You and Brad had that one right. But I thought I was, I was ready to be, and her brushing me off messed me up. Dana was in love with you. You’ve got to expect that your going, whatever your reasons, messed her up.”

Jordan sat again, thoughtfully broke a cookie in two. “You’re telling me not to mess her up again.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”

Chapter Nine

DANA tried working off her sexual and emotional frustration with the books. She focused on the goal, and spent half the night sifting through data, words, notes, and her own speculations about the location of the key.

Her primary reward was a massive headache.

What little sleep she managed to get was restless and unsatisfying. When even Moe failed to perk up her morning mood, she decided to give physical labor a try.

She dropped Moe back at Flynn’s by simply opening the front door with her key and letting him bullet inside. Since it was still short of nine of a Sunday morning, she imagined the household was sleeping.

In her current mood, the machine-gun barking that sprayed through the quiet as Moe charged up the stairs made her lips curve in a dark, wicked smile.

“You go, Moe,” she cheered, shut the door, and strolled back to her car.

She drove directly to the building. Indulgence, she corrected herself as she parked. It was going to be Indulgence, so she needed to start thinking of it that way instead of as “the house” or “the building.”

When she unlocked the door and stepped inside, the strong smell of fresh paint hit her. It was a good smell, she decided. The smell of progress, of newness, of accomplishment.

Maybe the white primer wasn’t pretty, but it was sure as hell bright, and looking at it, she could see just how far they’d come already.

“So let’s keep going.”