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about it. If the manhad driven all the way up from Fort Lauderdale the day before, then he probably wanted to sleep in. And when he did get up, Sara planned to be cordial and polite, but she’d also be firm: He had to leave. He could not stay in the apartment with her. It was one thing to tell Greg that a man had stayed with her for one night because of an emergency, but it was another to say that he’d spent two nights—or more.
    It crossed her mind that she should be the one to get out, but where could she go? If she moved into her parents’ spare bedroom, she’d again have to hear her mother’s speech that she could “do better” than Greg Anders. Worse, she’d have to see her father looking at her with sad eyes.
    Sara had lived in Edilean all her life and she had lots of friends, not to mention relatives, so she could go to one of them, but that would cause too many questions. They’d want to know where Greg went and when he was going to return. Would he be back in time for the wedding? they’d ask. That Sara had no answers for these questions would lead to the one she most hated: Was Sara absolutely sure she wanted to marry him?
    No, where she was, in Tess’s apartment, so near her own place, was where she was going to stay. If she needed a change of clothes or sewing supplies, she could easily get them. She just had to hold her breath against the pesticide fumes when she went into her apartment, but she could do it.
    When she was dressed, Sara tiptoed out of the bedroom and made a quick trip to the bathroom, noting that it was spotlessly clean. No whiskers in the sink, no soap scum on the shower door. It was so exactly the way she’d left it that for a moment she thought maybe she’d dreamed that a man had come up through the floor.
    As she left the bathroom, she glanced at the closed door to theother bedroom. She’d not heard a sound from him. On the kitchen table was a note. Picking it up, she read it.
    “Dear Miss Shaw,” it said in what she thought was a very formal manner. His handwriting was even and readable.
Again, I am very sorry about last night. It wasn’t my intention to disturb anyone. I’m going into Williamsburg this morning to go to a gym, then I must run some errands. I’ll have lunch at the Williamsburg Inn at one, so if you’d like to take a break from your work and join me, perhaps I can make up somewhat for last night. I should be home at about five and I’ll cook dinner tonight. Maybe we can take turns? If there’s anything I can pick up for you while I’m in town or if you’d just like to talk, please call me.
    He put his cell number with its 954 area code at the bottom.
    Sara tossed the note back on to the table. “Of all the audacious, presumptuous …!” she said aloud. Have lunch with him? Surely he must know that she was about to be married. Last night when Tess told him who she was, he’d known several things about Sara, so he probably even knew the time and place of the wedding. And what did he mean by “if you’d just like to talk”? Did he think she had no friends ? And “take turns” cooking? How long was he planning to stay?
    Angry, she glanced about the kitchen and saw that he’d kept his word and cleared away everything from their little tea party of the night before. When she opened the refrigerator, what few items she had inside were neatly arranged.
    “Not my kind of man,” she said aloud.
    In silence, she ate a bowl of cereal, put her dirty items in the dishwasher, then went to the bedroom to start her day’s work. Butwhen she looked in the closet at the three boxes of clothes and the dozen or more garments on hangers, she wanted to close the door and leave.
    This was all Greg’s fault, she thought. A hundred percent of it was caused by him. Why did he have to run off like that? Why couldn’t he have told her where he was going and what he had to do that was so important? Why couldn’t he have written her a note like the one Tess’s brother