"You're ha**ng s*x with Jack Travis?"

"Of course not." I felt Jack's mouth brush gently over the nape of my neck, and I shivered. Holding the phone against my chest, I twisted to face him. "You have to go," I told him urgently.

I brought the phone back up to my ear. ". . . he there with you?" Liza was asking.

"No, it's the UPS guy. He wants me to sign something."

"Down here," Jack murmured, pulling my free hand along his body.

"Go," I muttered, pushing hard at his chest. He didn't budge, only eased my glasses off and cleaned the smudged lenses with the hem of his T-shirt.

"Is it a serious thing?" Liza asked.

"No. It's a shallow, meaningless, purely physical relationship that's heading absolutely nowhere." I flinched as Jack leaned over to nip my earlobe in retaliation.

"Cool! Ella, do you think you could get him to fix me up with one of his friends? I've been having kind of a dry spell lately—"

"I've got to go, Liza. I've got to clean up and figure out what to . . . oh, hell, I'll talk to you later." I hung up the phone and grabbed my glasses from Jack.

He followed as I ran to the bedroom. "What are you doing?"

I yanked the sheets and covers over the unmade bed. "My mother's going to get here any minute, and it looks like we had an orgy in here." I paused long enough to glare at him. "You have to go. I mean it. There is no way you're meeting my mother." I tossed the pillows onto the bed. Hurrying back to the main room, I whisked clutter into a giant wicker basket and shoved it into the coat closet.

The intercom by the door beeped. It was the concierge, David. "Miss Varner . . . you have a visitor. It's—"

"I know," I said, slumping in defeat. "Send her up." Turning to Jack, I saw that he had picked up Luke and was cuddling him against his chest. "What can I do to get rid of you?"

He smiled. "Not a damn thing."

In about two minutes, I heard a determined knock at the door.

I opened it. There was my mother, in full-face makeup and high heels, and a snug red dress that displayed the figure of a woman half her age. She sailed in on a cloud of department-store perfume, hugged and air-kissed me, and stood back to give me an assessing glance.

"I finally got tired of waiting to be invited," she told me, "so I decided to take the bull by the horns. I'm not letting you keep my grandson away from me any longer."

"You're a grandmother now?" I asked.

She continued to look me over. "You've put on weight, Ella."

"I've lost a few pounds, actually."

"Good for you. A few more, and you'll be back to a healthy size."

"A size eight is healthy, Mom."

She gave me a fond, chiding glance. "If you're that sensitive about it, I won't mention it anymore." Her eyes widened theatrically as Jack approached us. "Well, who is this? Why don't you introduce me to your friend, Ella?"

"Jack Travis," I muttered, "this is my mother—"

"Candy Varner," she interrupted, going in for a hug, crowding the baby between them. "We don't need to bother with handshakes, Jack . . . I've always been crazy about Ella's friends." She winked at him. "And they've always been crazy about me." She pried the baby from his arms. "And here is my precious grandson . . . oh, I don't know why I let Ella keep you away from me this long, you little sugar lump."

"I said you were welcome to babysit any time," I muttered.

She ignored that, venturing into the apartment. "How cozy this is. I think it's so sweet, the two of you taking care of Luke while Tara is on her spa vacation."

I followed her. "She's at a clinic for psychologically and emotionally disturbed people."

My mother went to the windows to check out the view. "It doesn't matter what you call it. Places like that are so in, nowadays. The Hollywood stars do it all the time—they need a little escape from the pressure, so they come up with some made-up problem, and they get to relax and get pampered for a few weeks."

"It's not a made-up problem," I said. "Tara—"

"Your sister has stress, that's all. I was watching a program the other day about Cortisol, which is a stress hormone, and they said coffee drinkers have a lot more Cortisol than the average person. And I've always said you and Tara drink too much coffee, both of you."

"I don't think Tara's problems—or mine—occurred because of one too many lattes," I said darkly.

"My point is, you bring on your own stress. You've got to rise above it. Like I do. Just because your father's side was weak-minded, doesn't mean you have to give in to it." As my mother chattered, she wandered around the apartment, looking at everything with the atten-tiveness of an insurance assessor. I watched her uneasily, longing to take the baby back. "Ella, you should have told me you were living here." She cast a grateful glance at Jack. "I want to thank you for helping my daughter, Jack. She has a vivid imagination, by the way. I hope you don't believe everything she says. When she was a child, she'd make up such stories . . . if you want to get to know the real Ella, you need to talk to me. Why don't you take us all out to dinner, and we'll get better acquainted? Tonight would be fine."

"Great idea," Jack said easily. "Let's do that sometime. Unfortunately, tonight Ella and I have plans."