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her.
    “No,” she said, the fun and laughter wiped away. “Nope.
Single again.”
    “Broke up?” he asked with the sympathetic understanding he
always showed, and she wondered why she could never meet a guy like her
brother.
    “Yeah. Broke, broke up, and home for the holidays.” She
lifted her water glass in a toast. “Merry Christmas.”
    “Never mind,” Rae said. “You have to kiss a lot of frogs,
huh, Mira?”
    “That’s right,” Mira said. “You’ll find the right one soon,
Alyssa, I know it. He’s out there waiting for you.”
    “What about you, Joe?” Susie asked. “You know, if you ever have
somebody special that you want to bring home with you, we’d love to meet her.”
    He shrugged. “Nobody special. Nobody to bring.”
    “Seems to me you’d be a real catch,” Dixie said. “A big,
handsome man like you, with that real good job? Lots of girls must be
interested.”
    “Not so handsome,” Joe said with a rueful smile, running a big
hand over his shaved head.
    Alyssa watched him do it, the sheer size of his shoulder, the
bulge of bicep that the dress shirt he was wearing in honor of the occasion
couldn’t conceal, the crooked grin twisting his mouth amidst the closely trimmed
stubble he’d begun wearing when he’d started shaving his head.
    No, not so handsome. But so tough, with his rough edges
barely concealed, leaving you wondering what sorts of banked fires might be burning
underneath.
    Dixie snorted. “More important things than hair. Any woman
worth having knows that. Maybe you’re just not giving them a chance.”
    “I don’t think that’s it,” he said. “It’s something else. I
don’t know. It starts out OK. They start out thinking I’m mysterious, I guess.
I’m a challenge. That’s what they say, later.” He stopped, reached for his
glass. No wonder. That was practically baring his soul, for Joe.
    “And then what?” Susie prompted. “Come on, Joe. Tell us.”
    “Guess they think there’s something there that turns out not
to be,” he said. “They want me to share my feelings. They say I don’t.” He
shrugged. “They want a different guy.”
    “Don’t know where women got started with that notion,” Dixie
said. “Share your feelings? Men don’t have that many feelings.”
    “Oh, now,” Alec protested as all the men at the table
laughed. “We have feelings.”
    “What?” Dixie challenged. “A man thinks, why’s the truck
making that funny noise, should I take it into the shop. Glad to be home for
the day. What’s for dinner. And I hope it’s bedtime soon. That’s a man’s
feelings.”
    That got a good laugh out of everyone. “I won’t say you’re
wrong,” Alec said. “But hey, those are some powerful feelings. You can’t really
blame us for that.”
    “And who wants a man to yap at them all the time?” Dixie
went on. “She’s got girlfriends for that. Can you listen?” she asked Joe.
    “I can do that,” he said. “I can listen.”
    “There you go, then,” she pronounced triumphantly. “If you
can listen when she talks, that’s plenty. A woman with any sense at all wants a
good, strong, reliable man, one who’s going to be there to hold her when she’s
had a bad day, fix things when they break, solve problems. That’s what a man’s
good for.”
    “Well,” Joe said, “that’s good for me, then, because that’s
about what I can do.”
    “Then you just need to find yourself a quality woman,” Dixie
insisted. “Maybe you’re looking in the wrong places. You tried church?”
    “No, ma’am. No, I haven’t.” Joe was struggling not to smile
now, Alyssa could tell.
    “There you go, then. Find a good church, and you’ll find a
quality woman.”
    “There are more places than that, though,” Rae said. “I’ve
met most of the guys I’ve dated at work, or through friends. Both of those are
good. I’d never have gone out with Alec if I hadn’t known him through work. Never. ”
    “Wow. Thanks,” he said, laughing.