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Goddard?”
    David, Holly saw in a quick glance over one shoulder, gave a slow smile. “I’m learning to make fruitcake.”
    “Fruitcake,” Skyler huffed, scowling. “I meant, what do you do for a living?”
    “I’m a door-to-door salesman,” was the icy and totally false reply. “I sell air fresheners. You know, those little bowls with the flowers in them—”
    “Here’s your coffee,” Holly broke in archly, setting David’s cup down on the just-cleared trestle table with a resounding thump. “Skyler, do you need a refill?”
    Skyler shot her a look and carried his cup to the sink, where he thrust it into the hands of a sedately amused Madge Elkins. “No!” he barked.
    “Am I breaking up a meaningful relationship?” David asked, lifting his cup in an unsuccessful attempt to hide a grin.
    Skyler’s look darkened; he leaned back against the counter and stubbornly folded his arms.
    Holly was embarrassed and exasperated. “Skyler Hollis, will you just sit down, please? David is—”
    “I know what David is,” Skyler snapped before he stomped out of the kitchen. Seconds later, the front door slammed.
    “I’m sorry,” David said.
    “I could swear I saw smoke coming out of that man’s ears,” Madge put in, receiving a swift look from Holly for her trouble.
    The housekeeper smiled and shrugged, then took her leave without waiting for an introduction to David Goddard.
    They were alone. Holly sighed heavily and fixed her gaze on her own cup of coffee.
    “Are you in love with Skyler—what’s his name? Hollis?”
    The directness of the question brought Holly’s gaze shooting up from the dark brew in her cup to David’s face. “In love with him?” she echoed stupidly.
    “You do realize, I hope, that if you marry that guy your name will be Holly Hollis?”
    Holly burst out laughing. “You know, I never thought of that. I guess I’d just have to go on calling myself Llewellyn.”
    David’s impossibly blue eyes were filled with gentle humor. “I really am sorry if I caused any trouble, Holly. If you want me to apologize to Hollis, I will.”
    “No,” Holly said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. “Skyler had no right to act that way,” she added moments later, in more carefully measured tones. “He has no claim on me and if I want to bring a friend home for coffee…”
    “Is that what I am, Holly? Your friend?”
    Holly clasped her hands together in her lap. She was twenty-seven years old, an adult, but she suddenly felt like a fifteen-year-old on her first date. “I hope so,” she said softly.
    Graciously, David changed the subject. The muscles in his forearms worked as he reached for the sugar bowl and added a spoonful to his coffee. “You aren’t even thirty yet, unless I miss my guess,” he said. “How did you happen to accomplish so much by such a tender age?”
    Holly was comfortable with the subject of her career, at least. She pushed aside the strange suspicions she had about this man who sat across the table from her and allowed herself to forget, for a little while, her worries about Craig and her impossible relationship with Skyler Hollis. “I was lucky. My grandmother wrote cookbooks, you know, and she taught me a lot. And I worked hard.”
    “You must have spent a lot of time with your grandmother,” David remarked, watching her.
    “My brother and I lived with her, along with our mother. Our father was killed in an accident when I was seven,” Holly blurted out in a rush. There, she thought. If he asks about Craig, I’ll know something is wrong.
    She held her breath.
    “Your mother and grandmother are both gone now?” David asked gently.
    Holly was unaccountably relieved, though her throattightened when she answered. “Grandmother passed away, yes. Mother married a missionary doctor and we don’t see her very often.”
    David’s rugged face seemed to grow taut for a moment. “You’ve never been married?”
    Holly shook her head. “I almost was, once.” Strange. She