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the letter said, nor am I concerned about this wedding dress you keep bringing up.”
    “Of course you don’t care,” Shelly said indignantly. “Why should you? It must all seem quite absurd to you. And I’m aware that I’m overreacting, but I do have a tendency to get emotional. If it helps any, I want you to know I’m happy with my life just the way it is. I don’twant to get married—to anyone.” When she’d finished, she drew in a deep breath and began leafing idly through a magazine, doing her utmost to ignore him.
    Silence returned. Silences had always bothered Shelly. It was as if she felt personally responsible for filling them. “If you want something to be grateful about, you can thank your lucky stars I didn’t mention you to my mother.”
    “Your mother,” Mark repeated. “Does she know about Aunt Milly sending you this…dress?”
    “Of course she does,” Shelly answered, closing the magazine. “She’s phoned me every day since she heard, because she thinks I’m going to meet that special someone any minute.”
    “And you didn’t say anything about me?”
    “How could I? The instant I do that, she’ll be calling the caterers.”
    “I see.” The edges of his mouth lifted as though he was beginning to find the situation amusing. “She believes in the power of this dress, too?”
    “Unfortunately, yes. You have to understand where my mother stands on the issue of marriage,” Shelly continued, undaunted.
    “I’m not sure I want to,” Mark muttered under his breath.
    Shelly disregarded his comment. “By age twenty-eight—my age now, coincidentally—Mom had been married for eight years and already had three children. She’s convinced I’m letting the best years of my lifeslip away. There’s nothing I can say to make her believe differently.”
    “Then I’ll add my gratitude that you didn’t mention me.”
    Mollified, Shelly nodded, then glanced at her watch. Her meeting was in ten minutes and she was nervous, since this was the first time she’d done her own taxes. She should have known there’d be a problem.
    “I take it you’re here for an audit?” Mark asked.
    She nodded again, studying her tax return, sure she’d be in jail by nightfall without even understanding what she’d done wrong.
    “Relax.”
    “How can I?”
    “Have you knowingly hidden something from the government? Lied about the income you received, or claimed expenditures you’ve never made?”
    “Oh, no!”
    “Then you don’t have anything to worry about.”
    “I don’t?” Shelly stared at him, envying his confidence. She’d been restless for days, worrying about this meeting. If it wasn’t the wedding dress giving her nightmares, it was the audit.
    “Don’t volunteer any information unless they ask for it.”
    “All right.”
    “Did you prepare your own tax return?”
    “Well, yes. It didn’t seem that complicated, and well, this sounds silly but Jill bet me I couldn’t do it. So I did.Back in February. You see, numbers tend to confuse me and I decided to accept the challenge, and…” She realized she was chattering, something she did when she was nervous. Forcing herself to stay quiet, she scanned her return for the hundredth time, wondering what she could have possibly done wrong.
    “Do you want me to look it over for you?”
    Shelly was surprised by his generosity. “If you wouldn’t mind. Are you being audited yourself?”
    Mark smiled and shook his head. “A client of mine is.”
    “Oh.”
    He crossed the room and sat next to her. When Shelly handed him her tax return, he quickly ran down the row of figures, then asked her several questions.
    “I’ve got everything right here,” she assured him, gesturing toward the carton she’d lugged in with her. “I really am careful about saving everything I should.”
    Mark gestured at the large cardboard box. “This is all for one year?”
    “No,” she admitted sheepishly. “I brought along everything I had for the past six