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glanced at Toby, then turned to Sue, who exchanged a smile with her. He had a sense they were communicating privately in some secret female code. Lindsey was probably saying, My dad is really a jerk, and Sue was saying…what? All dads are jerks, or I’ll teach you howto get around him, or Your dad just offered me wine, so he can’t be that much of a jerk.
    Trying to ignore them, he drained the spaghetti and dumped it into a serving bowl. “Yes, Dr. Dad,” Lindsey singsang before he had a chance to ask, taking the bowl from him to bring into the dining room. He poured the shrimp-laden sauce into another serving bowl—entertaining a guest meant using dishes he hadn’t used in ages, but given how nicely Lindsey had set the table, he wasn’t going to serve dinner in pots and pans. At last, he opened the bottle of wine, then gestured Sue ahead of him into the dining room.
    There, he thought, gazing at the food arrayed on the table, the gleam of silver and china, the teardrop-shaped flames crowning the two candles, which Lindsey must have lit. Either the meal would go smoothly or it would be a disaster. He’d done his best under pressure, which seemed to be the way he did everything these days. No one could ask more of him.
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    A REAL HOME , Susannah thought. A father, a child, warmth and love. It was almost enough to make her weep.
    She was an actress, and she knew how to weep—or remain dry-eyed—on cue. But a sentimental sweetness filled her as she soaked it all in—Lindsey’s sardonic jokes and long-suffering sighs, Toby’s forbearance, the simple, filling food, the tart wine. She couldn’t recall the last time she’d eaten spaghetti. Out in California, it was always pasta, and it was never served in anything as basic as tomato sauce with shrimp mixed in.
    She wouldn’t have come if she’d known this dinner party had been his daughter’s idea. The poor man! He was a doctor; he shouldn’t be entertaining a guest aftera full day of racing around, pushing gurneys up and down hospital corridors, barking orders, holding patients’ hands, demanding tests and equipment and facing a crisis every thirteen minutes, just before the commercial break. That was how it worked on Mercy Hospital, anyway.
    After such hard work, he deserved better than to have Susannah appear on his doorstep with nothing more to offer than a plate of brownies that she hadn’t even baked from scratch. She wanted to beg his forgiveness—except that she was through with accommodating everyone else, making others happy, doing what they wanted her to do. It was her turn to do what she wanted—and what she wanted right now was to be eating spaghetti mixed with slightly rubbery shrimp and bland sauce, in this pretty dining room with its old-fashioned furniture and expensive china.
    And the candles. Were they on the table for a reason? Surely he hadn’t been thinking of a romantic dinner, not with his sassy daughter present. And why was Susannah even thinking about a romantic anything with Toby Cole? He was just her new neighbor. An unconscionably good-looking man, but so what? She didn’t want a romance with him or anyone else.
    He was describing a new therapy he hoped to try on a patient of his, a six-year-old with asthma. Every now and then, he’d glance at Susannah and say, “You don’t really want to hear this, do you?” and she would insist she did. She wanted to hear every word of it—not because she was a polite guest or because she longed to increase her knowledge about what doctors did beyond what little she’d learned from the TV show, but because when Toby talked about the promise of a newasthma drug, his eyes glowed brighter than the candles, fiery with passion.
    Would he be as passionate in bed as he was when he talked about helping a six-year-old to breathe more easily?
    Stupid question. Stupid thought. He was a neighbor, for