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that."
    "Nice work if you can get it," she declared with humorous envy. "Beats my routine."
    His mouth lifted at the edge. "You said you were an ex-librarian. When did you go into business for yourself?"
    "A couple of years ago." She set down her glass and went back to work on the broccoli. She didn't particularly want to encourage the discussion in that direction.
    As if he sensed her desire not to talk about it, Croft deliberately focused on the one direction Mercy didn't wish to go. "What made you decide to open a bookstore?"
    "It's only natural for a librarian to be interested in trying to sell the product she's been loaning out for years, isn't it? I see bookselling as the mercenary side of librarianship."
    "Are you from Washington?"
    Mercy shook her head, beginning to worry that he wasn't going to let the subject drop. "California."
    "Why didn't you open your bookshop down there?"
    "I looked around for several months before choosing a location. I like Washington, I like Ignatius Cove and I thought it could support the kind of store I wanted to run." She was very busy with the broccoli now, cutting the florets, running them under cold water again and stacking them neatly in the perforated steamer pan.
    There was a short silence. "Why did you leave California?" he asked.
    Mercy stifled a groan. "I told you. I did a lot of looking and decided business odds were better up here."
    "I think there was more to it than just a business decision. For you to pull up stakes and move to another state there must have been some other reason involved. You're not the kind of woman who would move easily. You forge ties and put down roots."
    She whirled around, startled by his cool deduction. "Why on earth do you say that?"
    He took a sip from his glass and contemplated her flaring eyes. "Was it a man?"
    She closed her teeth with a small snap and wondered how one got rid of a dinner guest before dinner. "That," she informed him, "is none of your business, is it?"
    "It was a man." He inclined his head once, as if satisfied. Then he took another swallow of wine. "Were you running away from him?"
    His casual invasion of her privacy infuriated Mercy. She slammed the lid on me steamer. "No, I was not running away from him. I was engaged to him. When the engagement ended, I decided I wanted a fresh start somewhere else."
    "Why did the engagement end? Did he cheat on you?"
    Her fingers were trembling, Mercy realized as she ran water for the pasta into a kettle. She focused her attention on the small task. "I don't know. If he did, I wasn't aware of it. That wasn't the reason the engagement ended."
    "It would take a lot for you to walk out on a man."
    "That may not be saying much about my intelligence."
    "So what happened?"
    "Are you always this rude?"
    "It's my nature. I like to understand what I'm dealing with."
    "The only thing you're dealing with tonight is a free meal. That shouldn't require much understanding."
    "The hell it doesn't. You know as well as I do that there's no such thing as a free lunch. There's always a reckoning."
    She couldn't decide if he was laughing at her or not. Mercy didn't dare turn around to find out. "Feel free to walk out the door before you find yourself in too deep."
    "I'm already in too deep. But don't worry, I think I'm willing to pay the price. What happened in California, Mercy?"
    He was too much. But when she shot him a quick glance

over her shoulder, she found her irritation evaporating. Instead of a mocking or prying inquisitiveness she instead saw in his eyes an intense, almost physical awareness. She experienced an overwhelming desire to explain everything to him. She had never talked about
this particular part of her past with anyone, but now she wanted Croft to understand what had happened. "Remember what you said earlier about how difficult it was to choose a lover because one never knew for certain if one was choosing a friend or an enemy?"
    "I remember."
    "Well, my fiancé turned out to be an