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this was to have been a surprise party for your wife?” he commented in an even tone which alerted Elissa at once.
    “June’s first one.” Martin chuckled, putting an affectionate arm around her shoulders.
    “And a complete success! I had no idea Elissa and Martin had been plotting,” June grinned, slanting a happy look at her husband.
    “I’m sure they worked very hard on it. It appears to have gone off quite well,” Wade said dryly, his gray eyes gliding over Elissa’s carefully composed smile like a shark considering its next meal.
    In spite of herself, she shivered, keeping the charming smile in place at a considerable cost. Bravely she challenged him with a mockingly raised eyebrow. Surely he must be getting the picture. June and Martin were clearly very much in love, and the excuse of planning a surprise party had been shown to be completely truthful. How long before he backed down?
    Elissa wondered, running an unconscious tongue tip over her lower lip in expectation. And how gracious would she allow herself to be when the time came to accept his apology? She was certain now she wouldn’t allow him to escape without one.
    “I was just going to bring out the cake,” she declared, slipping lightly through the crowd toward the kitchen. The brief conversation with the Randolphs seemed to be breaking the brittle moment nicely. Others in the group who knew Wade and worked for him closed around him with polite, mildly curious greetings. He was still something of a stranger in the midst, she realized, stepping into the kitchen and picking up the beautifully constructed cake. Most of his employees had seen Wade only in brief, formal sessions at work. Finding him a part of their social world was bound to stimulate curiosity.
    “Need any help, love?” Dean stuck his head around the corner and smiled.
    “I think I can manage. Would you mind bringing that knife along, though?”
    He picked it up obligingly. “So that’s Taggert, hmm? The one who didn’
    t give you the job?”
    “That’s the one, I’m afraid.” She chuckled wryly.
    “He’s a little different from what I expected,” Dean began slowly.
    The voice which responded to the comment wasn’t Elissa’s. It was Wade
    ’s dark, heavy tones, and she whirled in surprise to see him lounging in the kitchen doorway, arms folded across his chest as he watched the other two.
    “What, exactly, did you expect?” he asked the younger man a bit too gently.
    “Never mind,” Elissa commanded immediately, stepping between the two men, cake in hand. “We’ve got more important things to do right now.
    Bring that knife, Dean, and you, Wade, bring those extra napkins over there.”
    She moved forward with the attitude of a queen leading a procession and hoped she was leaving the men nothing else to do but follow obediently behind.
    A chorus of oohs and aahs greeted the arrival of the cake, and June was pushed cheerfully forward to cut it. Dean graciously handed over the knife, and out of the corner of her eye Elissa could see Wade standing aloofly to one side, a handful of napkins clasped rather incongruously in his fingers.
    “Now, this,” Elissa began dramatically, “is a very special cake, June.
    Might I suggest you make the first cut about here?” She guided the woman’s poised hand to a point over a pink rose. “Yes, I think that’s about right. I would also suggest you cut very carefully.”
    There was a burst of laughter over the elaborate cake-cutting directions, and Martin shushed everyone with a wave of his hand. “This is very serious, folks,” he joked and eyed his wife with mock warning. “Make that cut exactly as Elissa suggests, June!”
    “You’ve both got me terrified of a simple cake,” June complained laughingly, nevertheless sinking the knife into the icing with proper care.
    “I don’t see what could be so difficult…” She paused a second later as the knife refused to continue its downward progress. “What in the