“Don’t cry, Dana. It rips me.”

“It’s a little tough to get through otherwise.” But she swiped her fingers under her eyes. “We were young, Jordan, and we both made mistakes. We can’t change what happened, but we can put it in place and try to be friends again.”

“We’re grown up now, and we’ve got today to deal with. You want to be friends, I’ll be your friend.”

“Okay.” She managed a wobbly smile and held out a hand.

“There’s just one more thing you need to know.” He clasped her fingers firmly in his. “I’m in love with you.”

“Oh.” Her already unsteady heart stumbled. “God.”

“I never got over you. Whatever I felt for you back then, it was like the root. Time went on, I’d keep trying to kill that root, but it wouldn’t die. I’d breeze back into town to see Flynn, catch a glimpse of you, or you’d take a shot at me, and what was growing on that root would nudge a little further up from the ground.”

“Damn it, Jordan. Damn it.”

Whatever it cost him, he had to get it out. “This last time, when I knocked on Flynn’s door and you opened it, it was like that vine shot up another ten feet and wrapped around my throat. I’m in love with you, Dana. I can’t kill it off, and I wouldn’t if I could. So, I’m spilling my heart at your feet this time. It’s yours, whatever you do with it.”

“What do you think I’m going to do, you jackass?” She leaped into his arms.

Relief, joy, pleasure rushed through him like a flood as he buried his face in her hair. “That’s what I was hoping you’d say.”

THE first thing Dana heard when she walked back into Indulgence was arguing. Just one of the essential elements, in her opinion, that made a house a home. She cocked an ear toward her section of the building, and held up a hand for quiet when Jordan stepped in behind her.

“I’m not going to hurt myself. I’m perfectly capable of running an electric sander. You just don’t want anyone else to play with it.”

“In the first place, it’s not a toy.” There was such chilly exasperation in Brad’s voice that Dana had to muffle a snort. “In the second, once I’ve finished this area—which I would already have done if you didn’t keep nagging—”

“I don’t nag.” There were equal parts venom and insult in Zoe’s response.

Dana gave Jordan’s arm a tug. “You go referee the Irritable Twins,” she whispered. “I need to talk to Malory.”

“Why can’t I talk to Malory?”

“A real man wouldn’t be afraid to—”

“Oh, stop that.” He hunched his shoulders, jammed his hands in his pockets, and strode off in the direction of the spat.

Dana buffed her nails on her jacket. “Works every time.” Then she huffed out a breath, squared her own shoulders, and headed in the opposite direction to swallow her serving of crow.

The walls in what would be Malory’s main showroom were finished. And looked, Dana decided, just swell. She could hear the music from the radio jingling out from the room beyond, and Malory’s singing along with Bonnie Raitt.

She was also, Dana noted as she stepped in, grooving. As Malory swiped the roller up and down, her hips bumped to the jumpy Delta beat.

“You got that up so loud just to keep up your rhythm, or to block out the sexual tension from across the hall?”

Malory turned, set down her roller to give her arms a rest. “A little of both. How’re you doing?”

“How do I look?”

“Better.” Malory took a closer study. “In fact, you look pretty damn good.”

“I feel pretty damn good. First, I’m sorry. I was feeling miserable and I took it out on you. You were only trying to help.”

“Friends do that. Take their moods out on each other, and try to help. Both of you looked so unhappy, Dana.”

“Well, we were. We had reason to be. Whatever Kane’s motives, he showed me the truth. I couldn’t just bury what happened before, all that hurt. It had to be dealt with, taken out, looked at. Understood, at least.”

“You’re right.”

“No, you were right.” She peeled off her jacket, tossed it on the window ledge. “I wasn’t dealing with it, not by starting things up with Jordan again, or cutting them off. I just had it buried in a very shallow grave. We both did.”

“You needed time together first, to get to know each other again.”

“You’re right. You’re batting a thousand today.”

“Though I’ve never understood exactly what that means, let me see if I can keep it up. You went to see Jordan, you talked some of this out, and you reached the understanding, at last, that you’re in love with each other.”

“Sign her up. He loves me.” When Dana’s eyes filled, Malory whipped the kerchief off her head and rushed over to offer it. “Thanks. He said things to me he didn’t say before. Couldn’t say, or wouldn’t. I don’t guess it matters. He wasn’t ready, and if I’m going to be honest about it, we weren’t ready. I loved him, but that wasn’t enough to let me see what he was going through, what he needed. What I needed, for that matter. It was blinding, so all I could see was ‘I want Jordan.’ Period. I never thought about what we’d do together, or be together, what either of us needed to do separately to make it strong. It was all just right that minute.”

“You were young, and in love.” Malory took the kerchief back and dried her own eyes.

“Yeah, I was. I loved him with everything I had. But I have more now. And it’s so amazing, really, to be able to take one step back and look at the man he is, the man he’s made of himself and realize he’s more. To know it was worth the wait.”

“Dana.”

Her damp eyes went wide on Malory’s face, then she blinked rapidly before turning to where Jordan stood in the doorway. “This is girl stuff here.”

“Dana.” He said her name again, then crossed to her. She saw the emotion swirling in his eyes, blazing in the blue before his arms banded around her. He hitched her up to her toes as his mouth swooped down to hers.

“Oh.” Undone, Malory buried her face in the kerchief.