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don’t want him, anyway.”
    “I’m missing half my left breast, Mer. That’s not exactly something a man’s going to be able to overlook.”
    Merissa nudged her shoulder with her own. “My two boobs together don’t fill a C cup. So if your one really impressive breast isn’t enough for him, then I say you kick the greedy bastard out on his ass in the snow.” She flopped back on the bed. “Promise me that if Ian does ask you out, you’ll run in the opposite direction. Because if he’s anything like his uncle Duncan, he’ll have you practically naked before you even make it through his front door.”
    Jessie patted Merissa’s leg and stood up. “I promise I’ll think about it,” was all she was willing to concede, going to her suitcase again.
    “I’m serious, Jess. Paula wasn’t kidding when she said we should start lower on the food chain. I think I would have been safer with that moose.” Merissa snorted. “I know she said any woman who goes home with a MacKeage complains that dawn arrives way too early, but I thought she meant it was because they’re such great lovers. I didn’t even consider that he’d roust me out of a nice warm bed at four-friggin’-A.M., dress me almost as fast as he undressed me, stuff me in his truck, and drive me back here through an obstacle course of wild critters.” She lifted her head to arch a brow. “Do you know he actually gave me a pat on the ass as I headed for the lobby door wondering where in hell I was?”
    Jessie stopped rummaging through her suitcase. “Are you having morning-after regrets, Mer?”
    “Good God, no!”
    Jessie set her hands on her hips. “So did Duncan live up to Paula’s bragging or not? Because I can’t tell if you’re happy or mad or still drunk.”
    Merissa dropped her head back on the bed with a moan. “Neither can I. Maybe I’m all three. Last night I actually caught myself thinking about moving here right around the time Duncan was . . . when he was . . .” She rolled onto her stomach with a groan. “I am such a slut,” she muttered into the pillow.
    “You really need to start working on your opinion of yourself,” Jessie said, pulling Toby’s sweater out of the suitcase. She walked back between the beds. “Or one of these days you’re going to start believing it.”
    “A rose by any other name is still a rose.”
    Jessie pulled a blanket up over her. “Bar sluts go home with anyone, whereas you are discerning. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with appreciating men.”
    “I’m thirty,” Merissa mumbled. “It’s time I got serious about keeping one of those men, don’t you think?” She rolled over, pulling the blanket with her then propping her head on the pillow. “Did you appreciate a parade of men before you married Eric?”
    “I kissed my share of frogs.” Jessie clutched Toby’s sweater to her chest and sat down on her bed with a sigh. “Only I can’t say I would have gone home with Ian last night even five years ago. All through high school and college I kept looking for the . . . for . . .” She shrugged. “For fireworks, I guess; one defining, magical moment that would tell me he was the one.”
    “And did you find it with Eric?” Merissa whispered.
    Jessie stood up with a snort. “I told you, I was so drunk the first time we made love that a nuclear bomb could have gone off and I wouldn’t have known it. About the only thing I do know is that we didn’t use any protection and I got pregnant. We got married in Las Vegas not twenty-four hours after I told him, and three months after that . . . well, you know the rest, because that was the day you walked into my hospital room and saved my life,” she finished thickly. She touched Merissa’s short curls. “So the next time I hear you calling yourself a slut, I swear I’m going to have Toby sit on you while I wash out your mouth with soap. Duncan MacKeage is the luckiest man on the planet, because he got to spend last night with an angel