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Chapter One   Chapter Two   Chapter Three

"How do you feel?" Sheila asked with barely controlled excitement, putting a final touch of blush to Meg Buffington's cheek.

"Don't ask," Meg snapped, fidgeting with the thin shoulder strap of her blue crepe evening dress as she tried to quell her feeling of raw terror.

Beyond the dingy gray walls backstage of the Funny Bone Comedy Club, there was a smattering of applause. Joey Boniface, the frustrated comic who owned the club, mounted the stage.

"You look great!" Sheila reassured her, giving her a last, encouraging smile. "Knock 'em dead."

Sheila had been the most insistent of the girls who dared her to enter Amateur Night here at the comedy club. Entertaining the girls around the college dormitory was one thing, but standing in front of strangers...

Well, I've never been able to resist a dare, Meg thought with a shrug of her bare shoulders.

"We have a lot of new talent for you to see tonight," Joey Boniface announced, having delivered a couple of his own tired jokes, "so we'd better get right to it. There's a young lady with us tonight who's been visiting the Funny Bone for several years. Finally she found the courage to come up here in front of you. When I told her I wanted her to be first so she'd be on before the language got too rough, she very graciously consented -- and cleaned up her act."

The audience laughed, possibly surprised that Joey had an original line.

"I'll warn you," he went on, "you'd better laugh for her because she has about three tables full of friends back there. If you aren't nice to her, they'll hit you with their purses. Their own, their very own -- Miss Buffy!"

Meg consciously made her feet move and stepped through the limp velvet curtain into the spotlight and cigarette smoke of the dining room. She immediately felt the heat of the lights on her already flushed cheeks. The stage was small, with patrons sitting at intimidating close range, right to the edge of the brightly lighted area.

In the instant before the spotlight completely blinded her, she picked out a face in the middle of the room to play to. And such a face!

He was the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen. The huge breath she had taken to propel herself onto the stage caught in her throat for a moment. But she went center stage and smiled directly at her Mr. Focus.

Turning gracefully, Meg smiled at Joey as he disappeared through the curtain -- leaving her there alone. With an unsteady hand she slipped the microphone from its stand, clutching it like a lifeline. She grinned toward the kids in the back of the room, even though she couldn't see them for the spotlight in her eyes.

"Thanks, Joey," she said in a voice which sounded much more at ease than she felt. "He's a prince. At least that's what he told the lady backstage when she asked him about the water-lily behind his ear."

The audience laughed, and from the baritone guffaws she knew it wasn't just her friends. With a deep breath, she relaxed and improvised on one of Joey's lines.

"Joey's right. My friends and I have been coming here for a long time -- ever since we found the man who made fake IDs. I paid him extra for mine. It says I'm -- " she stood up on her tiptoes " -- five-eight." She touched her medium brown hair. "Blond." She turned slightly to the side and took a deep breath. "Sexy."

When she waited for the laugh there, a heckler's very familiar whiskey-slurred voice bellowed something Meg couldn't make out. She put her hand to her ear, then waved in his direction dismissively, picking up her routine where he'd interrupted.

"We all graduate next Wednesday," she went on, knowing this was a weak place in her routine, but she needed it to segue into another line. Her friends greeted the statement with an unexpected cheer and she looked toward them gratefully. "And it's not a moment too soon! What a rowdy group! Wednesday is a great day to graduate -- you've rested up from the weekend before and don't have to recover until the following Monday!"

That joke had wide appeal in this particular crowd, as she hoped it would. The heckler shouted something and lunged toward the stage. The legs of a chair scraped on the bare wooden floor.

Shielding her eyes from the spotlight, Meg was surprised to see Mr. Focus had pushed his chair into the path of the heckler. His action delayed the pest long enough for Vinny the bouncer to subdue him with a hammy hand on his shoulder.

Meg was stunned by the idea that someone as perfect as Mr. Focus had come to her defense. While she groped for control of herself, something deep inside her rose to the occasion.

"Oh, you didn't have to do that! I'm prepared to deal with that man," she told the audience. "We studied his type in classes -- in Abnormal Psychology 301, and in Things that Live under Rocks 412."

Mr. Focus looked up at her with an amused smile on his face and casually reached for the glass in front of him.

"Put him down, sweetheart," she suggested, turning her attention toward the bouncer. "There's a university down the street where they'd love to have him. We don't know all the habits of extraterrestrials yet."

Oh, lord, Meg thought. My routine! Where is it!

Gloriously, the laughter was continuing, giving her a chance to regroup. Then she picked a key word. "My parents were surprised at how much it cost for four years of college." Ah! Back to the routine! "And it's not really four years; it's three years and nine months -- and a few odd days. Some of the oddest days I've ever spent, I might add. Of course, you don't have classes on Saturday or Sunday. There are holidays, and Spring Break."

Her friends cheered at the magic words, as she knew they would.

"There are classes you skip, and some you sleep through. There are times the professor doesn't show up. And you spend a lot of time partying. When you get down to it, you get that diploma and you hardly worked for it at all."

The older people in the audience laughed, but she knew that line didn't really amuse the gang she had come with. Some of them had worked very hard, and she had, too, for her degree in Business. There was a brief grumble from the heckler but Meg pretended to ignore him.

"I have some goals in mind for when I graduate. I feel strongly about doing what I can to bring peace and harmony to the world however I can. I'm going to see if I can find that heckler's spaceship for him."

So that one didn't go over so well, she thought; but the heckler was quiet. "I have other goals. I want to have a nice car, not a particularly fancy, expensive car. Just one that has a gas gauge and an odometer that both work. Something that still has some cash value when I decide to turn it in. Something that doesn't have a death wish whenever it sees a beer truck. My friend Sheila has a real nice car. But her speedometer is broken. She watches how fast the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror sway back and forth to know how fast she's going. When they come up boxcars, she knows she's going too fast."

That brought an unexpectedly loud burst of laughter. Meg felt a surge from somewhere within that swept away all the fear and uncertainty she'd had a few minutes before.

Her last joke wasn't really going to work; she had done too well. But she didn't have anything, off the top of her head, to replace it.

"My immediate goal is to get off this stage alive. You've been a great audience. Thank you."

She replaced the microphone on the stand and hurried off the stage through the curtains and into the hallway beyond.

Joey grabbed her roughly by the arm and shoved her back toward the stage. "Take a bow, kid!"

A bow was something Meg had warned herself not to do, considering the cut of her gown. She peeked back through the curtain and blew a kiss in the direction of the kids in the back of the room. Then she dashed to the minuscule ladies' room and locked the door behind her.

The woman who stared back at her from the streaked mirror over the sink looked nothing like the Meg Buffington she knew. Meg had an aversion to the heavy makeup and the too-fluffy hairdo Sheila had constructed. She wanted to remove the cosmetics and brush all the hairspray from her light brown hair. But she had nothing to work with, so she decided against doing any damage to her appearance for the moment.

Her heart was pounding with the wild sensations that had assaulted her in the past few minutes. Somewhere "Miss Buffy" had taken over for Meg Buffington. Meg wasn't the girl to think on her feet quite so well.

Buffy had put on a show, brash and aggressive, rising to the situation, doing combat with a rowdy heckler and finding funny lines quickly, deftly. Buffy hadn't wanted to leave the stage. Meg, having seen the handsome man in the audience who had forestalled the drunken heckler, was too confused to have put three words together.

"Meg! Meg!" Sheila called softly, tapping at the door. "Are you all right?"

Meg unlocked the door. "Yeah, I guess I am."

"You were great! I knew you would be!" Sheila exclaimed, immediately surveying Meg's face to see that her cosmetic artistry was still in place. "We're all so proud of you!"

Meg let go of a nervous laugh. "I -- have no idea what happened out there. Something just -- "

"Are those eyelashes bothering you?" Sheila asked, still intent on her face.

"They're awful!"

"All right, I'll take them off for you," Sheila offered. She put her purse down on the edge of the sink to search for the plastic case she kept the eyelashes in.

Meg closed her eyes for a few seconds, only to be confronted by the memory of the Man. In the dark room, backlit against a fog of tobacco smoke, his broad shoulders stretched an immaculately tailored light blue jacket.

"Darnest thing!" she sighed. "Did you see that guy -- "

For a moment, Meg had seen something in the face that caused a reaction inside her too profound to identify.

"Yeah! Who'd have thought someone would have taken offense when El Loudmoutho went into his act!" Sheila laughed as though reading her mind, removing the first eyelash.

Meg clenched her teeth after the fleeting sting. "Did you get a look at him? The guy in the blue jacket, I mean."

"God, yeah!" Sheila sighed theatrically, then chuckled. "He's a hunk. I've never seen him here before, though."

"He wrecked half the material I had about hecklers, you know?" Meg complained, enduring the other eyelash being pulled off. "I had about three more lines to use on that guy."

"Want some mascara?"

"I don't think so," Meg replied, taking a look at herself in the mirror. "This will have to do."

Sheila glanced at her own reflection in the mirror and decided her short brown curls were in place. She started out into the dim hallway, draping her arm casually around Meg's shoulder. "I'm going to be your manager, kid," she whispered glibly. "This is just the beginning. New York, Hollywood, Las Vegas -- "

"Forget it!" Meg told her emphatically, but the shadow of Miss Buffy was ready to go anywhere, anytime.

They slipped into the back of the room and started toward the table where Sheila had saved Meg a seat. Meg was stopped by a waiter, a young man in a crisp white shirt and slim black trousers.

"What are you drinking?" he asked softly.

"Ginger ale," Meg answered, reaching for her purse on the empty chair.

The waiter held up his hand when she started to take out some money, shaking his head. "The gentleman over there -- "

Meg looked at the man the waiter indicated and took a deep breath. At this closer range his dark hair and broad, tanned face were even more impressive than they had been from the stage. "Tell him 'Thanks, but no, thanks,' huh, Germaine? I'll pay for it myself."

"In that case, it's on the house," Germaine offered with a congratulatory grin. "You were great!"

"Thanks." Meg sighed as she sat down heavily. Unfortunately, the Man was in her line of sight as she turned to watch the next performer, but he was watching the stage, too.

All she could see was the back of his neatly barbered head and the firm line of his shoulders under the well-tailored jacket. He was sitting alone at the small table where there was one chair empty, the other two having been appropriated by other patrons. Most people came to the Funny Bone with someone else -- as couples or groups, the way her friends had. A lone man was not terribly common, perhaps a curiosity in himself.

Germaine placed the ginger ale on the table in front of her, returned the smile she gave him, and slipped away again.

Meg tried to listen to the man on the stage, a fellow she'd seen before at similar comedy events. He was nearly ready for an occasional job, Meg was sure. His material was acquiring more polish, and it flowed easily. She had learned a lot from watching him over the last few months and was pleased with his progress.

Miss Buffy felt a twinge of jealousy. Shocked, Meg put the thought away from her.

Eventually, the air of the room got oppressive. "I've got to get out of here," Meg whispered to Sheila between acts.

"Want me to come with you?" Sheila asked.

"No -- "

"I'll go with you," the boyfriend of one of the girls at the next table offered. He paused to take his pack of cigarettes from his jacket.

Customarily a few guys were included in the party so the girls could leave the club for a breath of air and have a suitable escort.

Outside, the Florida night was warm, the jasmine scented breeze a sharp contrast to the smell of beer and cigarettes. Meg took a deep breath and looked away toward the silhouettes of palm trees against the orange street lamps.

"You were very funny, Meg," the young man complimented. "Boy, that took a lot of guts. I don't think I could ever do anything like that."

"I did it on a dare," Meg shrugged, turning down the cigarette he offered her.

"Do you think you'll do it again?" he asked.

Meg said, "No", but Miss Buffy struggled to be affirmative. Meg was still battling the strange confusion she felt about her performance.

Meg was prepared to go into a business office and apply for a job and do what she had to do to make a living. It took self- assurance to put up with the personalities and office politics she'd encountered on summer jobs and her internship. But she didn't know she was capable of the aggressiveness of Miss Buffy.

It was one thing to learn a routine by rote, get up in front of friends in her dorm and do it in five minutes. Miss Buffy, however, had ad-libbed, put down the heckler and gotten back to her material like a trooper.

Meg turned her back to the young man, not rudely. He surely understood he was just there to keep away any unruly drunk who might come out of the club and accost her. He knew she did not particularly appreciate cigarette smoke in her face anyway. It was no big thing.

"Good evening," a deep voice drawled, and neat white loafers stopped on the patch of pavement she was looking at.

She looked up at the face and must have made some sort of acceptable response.

"You handled yourself very well, Miss Buffy," he commended, dark eyes darker in the unnatural orange light.

Miss Buffy squared her shoulders. "Don't you know it's a comedian's job to put down hecklers?" she demanded. "It's in all our standard contracts. I take it you're a stranger to these parts."

"Well, I've only been in Tampa for a few months," he told her. "My office is near here and I come in for lunch pretty often. Joey has been after me to come some night when there was a show...and..."

He shrugged his magnificent shoulders and plunged his hands into the pockets of his white slacks. A lock of his dark hair, encouraged by the gentle breeze, dropped over his forehead in shy apology.

Meg realized that Miss Buffy had backed this man down with her misplaced humorous nitpicking. Darn! she thought, I want to get to know him and I've blown the chance somehow.

"Well, maybe you'll come back again," she suggested weakly.

"I'm just not used to hearing a man use language like that directed toward a woman he probably doesn't even know," the man declared.

Miss Buffy asserted herself with a dry laugh. "You think that was bad? I've lived in a women's dorm for four years. I've heard language that would curl your hair. And before that I rode a school bus. I heard things that would make a sailor blush -- from the sixth graders!"

He seemed to be chuckling in spite of himself. "Well, I guess my breeding gets in my way," he drawled. "I've been having a hard time learning that not everyone has such archaic manners as we do in Georgia."

"Sweetheart, you can bring your archaic manners along anytime," Miss Buffy drawled. God, he was charming just the way he was. How could anyone find fault with a man who wanted to protect a woman from the louts and clods of the world?

"I'm not used to hearing a lady refer to shooting craps and drinking the way you did, either," he stated, a touch of distress in his voice.

"It's all a part of the act," Meg assured him. "You have to play to the house and talk about what they know. I don't even smoke or drink."

"Then I'm sorry I insulted you by offering you a drink," he apologized.

"Think nothing of it," she consoled. "Your heart was in the right place." Even though it was Miss Buffy who was talking, Meg was observing that it was more than his heart that was in the right place. He was just about perfect, in any light.

"I'll see you around," he said, and turned toward a dark classic Corvette parked nearby.

Darn again, Meg thought. She had given him his cue to exit and she hadn't wanted to. She'd wanted to listen to that honeyed accent as long as possible.

"You ready to go back in?" her temporary escort asked as the powerful motor of the Corvette growled to life.

"Yes, I guess so," Meg sighed, but she watched the taillights of the car until it turned onto the street and the car roared out into the night.

Joey came to her table as the girls were collecting their tabs. "Meg, sweetie, I think you might be just what we need to open Friday night. One of the boys wants the night off. Do you have ten minutes?"

"Honey, I've got all the time in the world!" Buffy quipped and waited for a laugh.

"You know what I mean?" Joey asked, his forehead furrowing slightly.

"Yes, I know what you mean." Meg informed him, trying to contain her racing heart with a calm, businesslike tone in her voice.

"I thought you might drop in tomorrow after the lunch crowd thins out and we could work on it," Joey suggested.

"Good," Meg agreed, taking control and making plans. "I have an eleven o'clock job interview near here so that will be fine."

The girls talked about nothing but Meg's being offered a spot on Friday night's program as they piled into Sheila's car. "Aren't you excited, Meg?" Sheila asked. "This could be your big break! Show biz! I love it!"

"I don't know about Joey, though," one of the other girls mused. "I think I'd take a ten-foot pole with me."

Meg had contemplated the same thing but put the thought out of her mind. At the moment, she was glad to let the girls entertain her.

Buffy gloried in any crumb of praise handed her, while Meg would have been pleased just to dwell on a certain look of admiration in the face of the Man.

Back in the dormitory, one of the girls who hadn't gone to the Funny Bone accosted them as they tumbled hilariously into the corridor. "How did it go?"

"Couldn't have been better!" Sheila proclaimed. "Miss Buffy wowed 'em. Joey wants her to go back Friday night."

"And she met the most gorgeous man," someone else piped up.

"Tell me about it later, huh, Meg? Your mom called and when I told her where you were, she about had a fit," the girl advised, waving a scrap of paper in Meg's face. "Better call her and straighten it out before it gets too late."

"That's all I need!" Meg laughed. "My parents disowning me just when I become a big success!"

She tried to sound very happy and positive when she reached her mother on the phone. But Myra Buffington was a past master at throwing cold water on the most jubilant of situations.

"Mom, it was a lot of fun!" Meg defended herself against her mother's dire predictions that she was on a road to depravity. "But it's over now and I survived, so what's the problem?"

"I swear, Margaret," her mother clucked, using her proper Christian name to denote her exasperation, "sending you to college was a mistake. You should have stayed at home and been a secretary the way we planned."

The we who had made those plans were her mother and father, without having listened to Meg's dreams for herself.

She had learned from a trip to Washington her senior year of high school that her small town in central Florida was not the center of the universe. When she'd been offered a scholarship to the University of Tampa, she'd taken it, though it meant working summers and part-time during the school year to meet the expenses not covered by her scholarship. It had been worth it, though.

Meg no longer considered herself a small-town girl, and she was not intimidated by the quicker pace of the growing city of Tampa. She had chosen to study Business with an eye to getting a job that would provide well for the life she wanted to live. Now she saw the dream within her reach, if not her grasp.

"Anyway," her mother sighed into the phone, "I was calling to tell you we'll meet you at your dorm at four Wednesday afternoon."

"But I'll have moved into the apartment by then, Mom," Meg interrupted. "Sheila and Barb and I found a place. Look, it would be easier if you'd just go to the ceremonies and I'll meet you after. It's going to be so much confusion."

Her mother sounded disgruntled. "Oh, all right," she groaned at last, not having been offered any alternative. "I guess that will have to do."

"I'll see you Wednesday then, Mom," Meg told her, straining to be cheerful for a last few seconds. "I love you."

"I love you too, dear," her mother proclaimed automatically and then hung up.

"Trouble?" Sheila asked, leaning against the wall by the phone.

"No, not really," Meg replied. "Mom's just -- last century, you know?"

Sheila shrugged. "Come on, you're out on your feet. We have to start moving tomorrow."

Meg groaned theatrically. "I've got an interview and that meeting with Joey Boniface -- "

"So Barb and I won't have to work around you! You'll do your fair share by the time we're finished."

Chapter Two

Unusually heavy morning traffic had delayed Meg on her way to her interview. She parked her car and hurried into the chic new office complex. She didn't notice much about the sprawling tile-roofed building itself until she was in the foyer of Gulfcoast Financial Advisors Associates.

She was impressed by more than the air conditioning and a relaxed attitude of the efficient receptionist. The furniture and decor were spanking new and in excellent taste, obviously geared to attracting an elite clientele.

Meg had no time to read the financial magazine she picked up from the chrome and glass end table beside the neutral, nubby sofa. The receptionist put down her phone and announced, "Mr. Marsh will see you now, Miss Buffington."

Meg straightened the collar of her white linen blazer and took a deep breath. She was confident her hair was in order, swept back from her face in a sleek arrangement, and her makeup was flawlessly discreet. Based on the firm's prospectus she picked up the day she made her application, this was the job she wanted, and wanted badly.

"I have to admit I'm impressed by your resume," young Mr. Marsh told her, smiling at her as he folded his lanky frame into his swivel chair. "I even checked your references. Mrs. Garcia was very complimentary about your internship with her firm. I was just wondering why you didn't accept the position they offered you."

"It's a family firm," Meg explained, searching for a polite way to phrase her reasons. "I didn't feel I'd get very far with the Garcias because they rely on the family members more than on the outsiders. I was afraid I'd always be thought of as the intern and not taken seriously when I offered suggestions or asked for a raise."

Nodding thoughtfully, Mr. Marsh leaned back in his chair and rotated it gently as he mulled over what she had said. Then a smile curved his bland mouth. "I see. Quite astute of you to recognize the problem before you were trapped in a dead-end job."

There was the steady cadence of footsteps on the thick carpet outside the closed door, the muffled sound of a door opening and closing.

"Oh, good!" Mr. Marsh exclaimed. "Mr. Edmunds must have just gotten back. Have you met him?"

Meg blinked and shook her head.

"No? I thought that might have been why a lovely single woman would be applying here," he laughed, reaching for his phone and pressing a button. "Curtiss, the young woman I thought you might want to hire as office manager is here. Could you meet her before you start on anything?"

There was a pause before Mr. Marsh hung up the phone. He picked up the file and motioned for Meg to follow him to the connecting hall and to a door marked President.

Meg was intent on making certain she was personally in order when they entered the room. The man at the desk was turned away, searching for something in a low credenza behind his desk. Mr. Marsh spread a file folder on the desk and waited for Mr. Edmunds to look at it.

"Hm," Mr. Edmunds murmured, not raising his head from what he was reading to look at Meg. "Very impressive. Miss -- Buffington?"

Oh, no! Meg thought to herself when she heard the Southern drawl that went through her nervous system like an electrical shock. She looked at the dark brown of his hair. One lock fell carelessly across his forehead, its tip almost touching the frame of his heavily rimmed reading glasses.

When he stood up and removed the glasses to look at her across the room, her worst suspicions were confirmed. It was the same broad-shouldered physique, the same overpowering height that had impressed her the night before. For the first time she saw his clear gray eyes, guarded by thick dark lashes. They were all business, no nonsense, chilling in their intensity. In them she saw her destiny.

She stretched out her hand and he took it, perhaps a bit reluctantly. She had enough experience with true Southern men to know they were not at ease with women in management positions. Shaking hands like a man was not quite what was expected of a woman, yet. It was the accepted thing to do, she knew, and he would have to catch up. But she was not prepared for the way his hand overwhelmed hers, for whatever brief, barely polite period he held it.

"How do you do?" she asked, forcing the words out of her suddenly dry throat.

His eyes narrowed for a moment as he looked at her, then he motioned toward the chair across from his desk.

The receptionist appeared at the door and summoned Mr. Marsh to take a call in his office, and he hurried away. His departure left Meg feeling unprotected, without someone on her side to state her case and look out for her interests. She would just have to speak for herself.

"Well," Curtiss Edmunds sighed, sitting down and looking at her resume, "I can see why Allan thinks you're the solution to our problem. We need someone who understands several areas to manage our office. Allan and I have clients for whom we do tax and financial planning, all of which needs to be held strictly confidential. We need someone who will help us keep all the computers and files in order. That person will also research financial developments around the world and prepare abstracts to help us make our decisions."

"Sounds fascinating," Meg observed, keeping a tight hold on a surge of enthusiasm.

The gray eyes narrowed again. "You are, aren't you?"

"I beg your pardon?" Meg countered, stiffening.

"Miss Buffy, from the Funny Bone, last night? You don't look quite the same, but I hear it in your voice," he told her coolly.

"I'm afraid so," Meg confessed, knowing by the tone of his voice that he didn't approve.

There was an oppressive silence for a long moment. Curtiss Edmunds braided his large-knuckled hands together and twisted them a few times, thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose to do that, you have to -- be intelligent."

"Look, I'm sorry if you disapprove," Meg apologized. "It was one of those silly college dares. I have no intention of being a stand-up comedienne for a living. I've prepared myself to make a living in business. I thought the best way to do that was to learn business management and focus of finance. To be where the money is."

"Precisely," he said. "Yes, I came to that conclusion myself when I was in college. Then a few months ago I came here to Tampa on vacation. I met three men who wanted one person to handle all their financial questions instead of having one man do their taxes and another their investments. We discussed some ideas I had and they talked me into moving here and starting this business. Mr. Marsh and I are just beginning, but we have some important clients and pick up new ones every day. We're already having trouble keeping up and our girls aren't adept at using our computer. That should be no problem for you."

"No, I've taken several computing courses," Meg pointed out.

"Good," he approved, turning toward his terminal and flipping a switch which illuminated the screen. "Let me show you how we have this set up."

He motioned for her to come around the desk to see what he was doing more easily. She wondered if job-interview jitters or natural chemistry was making her acutely aware of every breath he took, every move he made.

After watching him change disks to switch from program to program, Meg motioned for him to stop what he was doing. "You mean you have to do everything separately? You're running only one program at a time?" she asked. "If you're consulting with a client, you switch out of your client's program into your stock quotations or tax schedules?"

"Yes," he replied, surprised that she asked the question.

"It would be so easy on this equipment to have the data available on the screen all the time," she told him.

"You could do that?" he asked, looking up at her in surprise.

"I'm amazed the company who sold you the computer didn't set it up that way for you. It might take me a few hours, but I think I could," she told him, glancing at the software holders on his desk. "I can't see why I couldn't do it with the software you have. If not, I have a friend who would know how."

"Miss Buffington, the position is yours if you want it," Curtiss Edmunds told her, with a wave of his hand.

Why aren't those words sending me into rapture? Meg asked herself. It was because she had heard in his voice that he was about to say something else.

"I trust that escapades like entertaining at the Funny Bone will not be a part of your life if you're employed by a firm which maintains a circumspect image."

Meg's backbone stiffened. "Mr. Edmunds, I'm a competent businesswoman. I can handle whatever challenge this position presents. But I call to your attention that what I do on my own time, so long as it's not illegal, immoral, or unethical, is my affair and not yours. Mr. Boniface has asked me to perform at the Funny Bone next Friday night. I was undecided whether I should take him up on his offer. After all, I could use the money, and telling jokes comes very easily to me. Now, I wouldn't turn him down for the world."

"But..." Curtiss Edmunds sputtered, getting to his feet.

Fixing him with a drop-dead glare, Meg turned on her heel and strode from the room. She was almost angry that the deep carpet at her feet muffled the sound of her footsteps. After all, there was no sound so unequivocal as the loud staccato click of high heels on a hard floor. The firm statement of her anger was delayed until she reached the paving of the sidewalk that led to the parking lot. She punctuated it by slamming her car door.

Curtiss took his lunch client to the Funny Bone. He thought that when Joey Boniface made his rounds of the tables, he would tell him it was a bad idea to have Miss Buffy perform there.

Curtiss got caught up in listening to Keith Berry's discontent with his current stockbroker. He began to doubt it was any of his business what Meg did with her life, since she'd made it clear she wasn't taking the job he'd offered her.

And it was a shame, too. She was undoubtedly the brightest young woman he had met in some time. There was the girl from Savannah he'd met at University of Georgia in his underclassman days, but she was mostly brains. Meg Buffington was much more. She was -- well -- aggressive, and that was something he was just beginning to value.

He'd certainly been forced to assert himself lately to set up his own firm and finance it. He'd hired Allan Marsh away from a rival firm of the company he had worked for in Atlanta. It was an unaccustomed challenge to persuade clients to use his services.

When Joey Boniface came by the table to shake hands, Curtiss decided against making an issue of Miss Buffy performing Friday night. It was, as had been pointed out to him, none of his business.

Meg debated her options in view of their cost-effectiveness. She could drive back to the campus for a sandwich and a glass of iced tea. Or she could stay in the neighborhood where she was, grab a burger at a fast-food stand, and save the gas it would take to return to the Funny Bone. Considering that there might not be anything in the refrigerator she shared with Sheila, it was a wiser choice to stay where she was.

She couldn't believe she'd turned down a job. It was one she wanted so badly, a challenge, a chance to create a sound foundation for her own ambitions. Nor could she believe anyone could be as humorless as Curtiss Edmunds. He hadn't seen the funny side of their encounter today under vastly different circumstances than the night before.

Maybe he was just putting her in her place, telling her he didn't think she should perform at the Funny Bone anymore. Maybe she shouldn't, but that should be her decision.

Performing at the Funny Bone had just been a lark, a dare, a giggle. Aside from the stage fright, which she'd managed to control once she realized she had friends in the audience, it had been fun. She had drunk in the applause and laughter and reveled in it. It was even better than kidding around with the girls in the dorm.

Making strangers laugh and forget whatever pain waited for them away from the spotlights was the most wonderful service she could provide. She couldn't make everyone rich, but she could make them forget, if only for a few moments.

It was a precious gift. Darn if anyone would take it away from her! Especially Curtiss Edmunds. Who did he think he was, telling her what she could do if she worked for him! Just because he was about the best-looking man she had ever seen...

She crumpled the bag her lunch had been in and tossed it into the trash outside the fast-food shop, then went back to her car.

The only trouble was that something strange happened to her every time she saw Curtiss Edmunds. Part of her wanted to stare in awe. Not just physically perfect, he was the kind of man she dreamed about. He was someone who understood ambitions that couldn't have been fulfilled in the dusty central Florida town where she'd been raised.

It wasn't that his prospects for financial success were so attractive, either. Meg had already met some men who had more money than they knew what to do with. With any break, she could make it on her own, too.

She knew that, as coldly calculating and businesslike as those gray eyes of his were, they were honest, too. Honest to a point of obsession. And she valued that.

The decor of the Funny Bone was heavy with colorful paintings of clowns everywhere. Statues of harlequins held signs while masks of comedy and tragedy looked down from the walls.

Meg studied the paintings at her leisure while she waited for Joey Boniface to leave the dining room. It was all quite a collection, and rather tastefully arranged. She recognized the investment value of several canvases done by famous artists who specialized in clown paintings.

She respected Joey for assembling shrewd purchases, but she recognized the weakness in herself to be impressed by dollar signs. She'd battled herself when she realized most people were more swayed with wealth and power than the spiritual values her parents had instilled in her.

Going from a small town to a city which was growing as quickly as Tampa had been a shock to her value system. She coped by relating amusing things to the people around her, people who themselves felt disoriented by the fast-changing world.

Meg wandered away from the entrance of the dining room toward Joey's office, lured by the painting beside the door.

"The lunch crowd is thinning out a little later than usual," Joey apologized, hurrying up to her, a defensive look on his face. "Sorry to keep you waiting."

"I was wondering if we could talk about Friday night," Meg said. "If you were serious about your offer, that is."

"I never joke about business," Joey informed her, opening the door to his jumbled, irregularly shaped and definitely undecorated office.

It was as unkempt as Joey seemed to be. There was nothing you could really put your finger on -- his jacket not fitting too well, his tie slightly out of line. He just didn't have the polish one might expect of a man pursuing success in show business. Perhaps that was why he had never achieved it.

Joey wasn't tall, perhaps only a few inches taller than Meg herself in her heels. He was balding slightly and his olive skin was showing signs of developing wrinkles and a second chin.

Meg was uneasy about him. His gallantry always seemed an act, a habitual double entendre in motion. It was as though he was always thinking of something on a lower level when he spoke to a woman.

"I think a woman comic could help this place a little," Joey observed. He flopped into a battered swivel chair and motioned for her to sit down on the threadbare sofa, between piles of clutter. Avoiding contact with a cardboard box and a battered ledger, she pretended she didn't notice anything amiss.

"Your material last night was all right for the situation," Joey pointed out. "But it was just what you represented it as. College humor. Here, things are a bit more sophisticated. The crowd isn't generally very young. But you do have to touch on things everyone can associate with. You did that with your jokes about cars. We've all had junkers -- that was good. But the college stuff -- you're going to have to come up with something more -- universal."

"I thought I'd try something about Commencement," Meg suggested.

"Well, possibly, but you can't do a whole ten minutes on it -- "

"Ten minutes?" Meg asked, the words almost catching in her throat.

"Well, I'm not going to pay you $50 for five."

"I have some material about apartment hunting and moving into a place with two other girls," Meg suggested. "Of course, right now I'm job hunting, and that's funny if you can stand the pain."

Joey laughed, throwing his head back and filling the room with a raucous sound. "The essence of humor! Taking pain and turning it into laughter. All right, a few jokes about Commencement, maybe something about moving from college to the big bad outside world, then job-hunting. See, that gives you a focus for your routine. I give you this advice that I wish I'd been given when I was starting out. You've got to be consistent with your material, not skip around just to tell jokes."

"Actually, I didn't think I did too badly on that score," Meg told him.

"Maybe not, but in a longer routine, you have to be conscious of it." He rambled on a bit, telling Meg things she'd already observed in studying the comedians who performed at the Funny Bone.

Then, as though he was just realizing the heat in the airless room, he stood up and removed his suit jacket, revealing a rumpled shirt with sweat stains under the arms.

"You have to be aware of something else, too, Buffy. This is no place for a prude."

Ah-ha! Meg thought to herself, casually tightening her grip on her purse and placing one foot more squarely on the floor. She had wondered how long it would take him to get around to the subject.

"Since I'm doing you the favor of letting you perform Friday night," he said with calm calculation, "I expect, shall we say, a favor in return."

Meg got to her feet with a slow chuckle and tried to make her smile disarming. "Mr. Boniface, I may not be a veteran in show biz, and I may never be, but I just heard my cue to exit."

He lunged to block her path to the door, but she was already past him and turning the doorknob. She was thankful he hadn't locked the door on their way in as she was afraid he might have. Long strides carried her out the short dark corridor to the reception area, then to the oppressive heat of the Florida sun in the parking lot.

With consternation, she noticed that the rear right tire of her car was flat. Swearing under her breath, she slammed her purse down on the dull surface of the trunk and rummaged for her car keys.

"May I be of assistance?" a now-familiar Southern drawl asked.

Meg looked around to see Curtiss Edmunds leaning against one of the few other cars in the lot, a dark blue Corvette of classic lines. All she could do was glare at him.

"I'd be glad to help," Curtiss said in a patronizing tone Meg had heard all too often in her life. Some men took it as given that a woman needed assistance with anything mechanical, mathematical, theoretical or logical. She supposed it was the way they were raised and there was nothing to do but make allowances for them.

"I've had enough help for the day!" she spat back, more as a release of her anger at Joey Boniface than at Curtiss.

Curtiss walked slowly toward her, his long legs covering the space in a few steps.

Meg unlocked the car door. She laid her white blazer on the back of the passenger seat, then pushed the sleeves of her pink silk blouse up above her elbows.

"I have changed a few tires in my life, Mr. Edmunds," she told him. And it was the truth, but she generally had some help. After all, cars were not engineered for a woman to get a grimy spare tire and a rusted jack out of the trunk with any great ease.

His mouth made a patronizing smile while she opened the trunk and began to wrestle with the jack and tire iron. They both knew this was going to be a messy job, but Meg was determined to do it herself.

"I suppose you were talking to Joey about performing Friday night," Curtiss remarked, seeming to decide to let her make a fool of herself.

"Among other things." Meg blew a wisp of hair out of her face with an exasperated breath.

"Hm!" Curtiss observed.

"Oh, I guess I'd have been surprised if he hadn't tried to come on to me," Meg told him, simulating some precision as she positioned the jack under the bumper. "If he hadn't, I would have thought I was a has-been at twenty-two!"

When he didn't laugh, she looked up at him. "That was a joke," she informed him with a sidelong look and then went back to her task. "I guess I'm a has-been as a comedienne, too."

"I just didn't think you'd be joking about a situation like that," he said.

"If I don't laugh about a predicament, I tend to cry," she told him. "I hear men hate to see women tear up."

Then he did laugh, a deep, thundering sound. "True. Look, it will go faster if you let me -- "

Meg pried the hubcap off the wheel with the tire iron and tossed it into the trunk.

"Well, the easy part is over!" she proclaimed.

With a will, she went to work on the bolts holding the wheel, her anger giving her more strength than she thought she had. But it was hard work. Between the third and fourth bolts, she began to wish she hadn't been so pigheaded about accepting Curtiss's assistance. When she bent back a thumbnail trying to lift the wheel off the hub, she was even more convinced of her folly.

Curtiss lifted the spare tire out of the trunk and placed it against the fender while she put the flat tire in its place.

"You don't mind just a smidgen of help, huh? I do have to get back to the office sometime this afternoon."

Meg struggled to get the wheel aligned with the bolts and cheered herself when it slipped into place. The nuts were back on and tightened more quickly than Meg thought she could accomplish it. She looked up at Curtiss with a gleam of pride in her eyes.

"Allow me," Curtiss suggested, proceeding to let down the jack.

Meg's pride turned to consternation as the spare tire sagged almost as flat as the tire she had taken off.

Curtiss had the nerve to laugh! He looked back and forth between the tire and Meg's crestfallen face and laughed!

"Ohh, yuck!" Meg groaned.

Gallantly, he took off his suit coat, jacked the car up again and had the spare off in less than a minute. His shoulder and back muscles were defined by the dampness the exertion caused on the fabric of his previously neat blue shirt.

"You wouldn't have been able to do that so fast if I'd gotten the lugs on tighter," Meg ragged.

"They were plenty tight enough, Miss Fix-it," Curtiss drawled. He slammed the trunk of her car closed and rolled the better of the two tires toward his Corvette. "Come on, we'll get this one fixed."

"Wait a minute!" Meg protested, but he was already opening the trunk of his car.

Chapter Three

"So, Joey tried to come on to you, huh?" Curtiss asked, his jaw tight as he threw his Corvette into gear. "And you got away without a hair out of place."

"I survived four years of college, didn't I?" Meg asked, finding the deeply cushioned seat too comfortable to sustain her anger. She was getting dangerously close to liking Curtiss Edmunds.

"I don't know," he drawled. "Did you?"

She arched an eyebrow and let the remark go unanswered.

It was only a block down the sweltering four-lane street to a tire store. A grimy, sweating attendant looked dubiously at the tire and shook his shaggy head.

"You should have seen the one that got away," Meg quipped, then hated herself when she fielded the uncomprehending stares the attendant and Curtiss turned back at her.

"I can pump it up and hope it holds," the young man offered, ignoring her attempt at a joke.

"Good enough," Curtiss agreed. "We'll put it back on and she can drive her car back over here to have both tires repaired."

"Whoa!" Meg exclaimed, realizing this was the last thing her budget could handle.

"Meg, listen. I'll put it on my credit card and you can pay me back out of your first paycheck," Curtiss offered.

"I can't accept that!" Meg spouted. "I told you -- " She lowered her voice so that the attendant would not overhear and possibly misunderstand. "I don't want to work for you."

"I suppose you'd rather work for Joey?" Curtiss hissed, and she could not believe he would be so tasteless.

"No. You know that!"

"Well, I'm not saying I'll be signing the check you repay me from," he declared. He placed a strong hand on her chin and raised it so she could not avoid looking at his steady gray eyes. "You need to be able to get around town if you're going to find a job. Which I'm sure you will. I just wish -- " He pursed his lips ever so briefly.

"It wouldn't work," Meg said, more to herself than to him.

"You're perfect for the job," he told her, confident he could not be heard over the ear-numbing sounds coming from the area where a man was mounting a tire.

"I don't think so."

It would be tacky to be in love with her boss on her first job, even though something about him told her he was her destiny.

"I'll bet, next Monday morning, you'll be back in my office, begging for a job," he proclaimed arrogantly.

"You shouldn't have said that," Meg warned. "I can't pass up a bet, a dare, or a challenge."

"I think the job would be the challenge," Curtiss countered. They followed the attendant as he carried the inflated tire out to the Corvette. "Besides -- how will I get my charge card back?"

"I'll bring it by the office -- "

"You can't do that," Curtiss pointed out. "That would be admitting defeat."

"It would not!"

"Tell you what! I have to show up at a party tonight at the common area of the condo where I live. It's a birthday party for one of the guys I've gotten to know. Everyone's going in couples. How about going with me?"

"I have to move stuff into my new apartment." She was thankful she had a ready excuse.

"I'll help you, and then you'll go to the party with me," he suggested. With a shrug, he drew into the parking lot and slid to a stop beside her car. "Do you want to put this tire on or may I?"

There had been no rest for Meg when she finally got back to her dormitory. Several of the girls had already moved out. Others were in the process of tearing down their rooms, laughing at souvenirs they'd outgrown. They shed tears when someone popped in for a last good-bye and assurances of letters they knew would never be written.

Two of Barbara's muscle-bound male friends were helping with the move. It was recompense for Barbara's drafting of Sheila's and Meg's help in setting up their apartment the week before. They handled heavy boxes with such ease, Meg was ashamed she had to ask Sheila's help to carry her own stereo down to her car.

Just as they reached the parking lot, Sheila paused to look at a car cruising into the drive.

"Will you look at that!" Sheila pointed out in wonder. "Who do we know who knows someone with a blue Corvette?"

"You're looking at her," Meg sighed. "That's Curtiss Edmunds."

"The guy you had the job interview with?" Sheila asked, wide-eyed. "The guy who helped you with your tires?"

"The same," Meg replied, tugging the stereo into the back seat of her roommate's car.

"What's he doing here?"

"He came by to get his credit card back," Meg answered.

"This story gets better and better," Sheila observed coyly.

Curtiss Edmunds soon pitched in to clear the dormitory room, muscles tanned and bulging around his knit polo shirt and his tennis shorts. At the call of "Go," he headed for his own car. He followed the caravan to the moderate-rent apartment complex where the girls had found a two-bedroom flat on the second floor.

The move was made in short time, one trip in each of the three cars available. When her roommates heard Curtiss had invited Meg to his condo for a party that night, they insisted she leave her unpacking for later. She grabbed a quick shower while he listened to the easy banter among her oldest friends.

Meg changed into a crisp white and pink sundress. She felt more civilized, although the prospects of spending an evening with Curtiss caused a flutter in her midsection.

The reaction her reappearance elicited from Curtiss on her return to the chaotic living room was just as unsettling. For an instant his eyes seemed to flash an appreciative gleam. But with a blink and a flexing of his jaw, he imposed his control on his expression as he stanched any feelings he had. Meg felt more secure then, ready to slip away in the Corvette to a condo on the bay.

It was measurably cooler with the breeze coming in off the water. The sun was about to set and the clouds were streaked with mauve and rose. The palms rustled spiked fronds as they swayed in the breeze.

Already they could hear the unmistakable sounds of a party around the pool. Over the rhythm of recorded music, there was conversation punctuated by laughter. Something in Meg perked up.

"Can we go up to my apartment while I change and get the beans I baked?" Curtiss asked.

"Fine," Meg concurred, tagging along after him up an open stairway to his courtyard apartment. It was better than standing around by herself or walking into a party of strangers without an escort. She had done that before, of course, but it was always better to be with someone.

And it was definitely nice being with Curtiss. Granted, he was infuriating at times. But he was the soul of propriety.

His apartment was a disappointment. It was sparkling, uncomfortably new everywhere she looked. The colors were chic and neutral, the lines uncluttered by any personal effects. Meg wished she could see a family photograph on one of the cube-like end tables, or a conch shell being used as an ashtray. Then she smiled to herself; she had not detected the scent of cigarettes in Curtiss's car, office, or his apartment. Her allergy to tobacco would not be assaulted!

Meg was just congratulating herself on that small bit of good fortune when there was a knock at the door.

"Will you get that for me, Meg?" Curtiss asked from the kitchen.

A moment later, Meg was confronted by a grinning blonde in an emerald bikini and nothing else but an incredible tan.

"Oh! You surprised me," she exclaimed. "I was looking for Curt."

"Right here," Curtiss called from the kitchen, obviously preoccupied with something. "Come on in, Janie. Meet Meg Buffington. Meg, Janie's my next door neighbor."

The women surveyed each other briefly and exchanged pleasantries as Janie strolled nonchalantly into the apartment.

"Are you coming down?" Janie asked impatiently. "We're going to be eating in about three minutes."

"The beans are just now out of the oven. Ha! Voila!" he proclaimed, placing a casserole on the pass-through. "Look, why don't you take the beans down to the patio so no one will have to wait any longer. And take Meg along. I want to clean up a bit."

Meg was uncertain whether she was going to enjoy tagging along with Janie, but it was better than staring at Curtiss's blank walls. Janie had already shoved her hands into Curtiss's oven mitts and was heading for the door with the beans.

"He makes the most delicious barbecued beans," Janie was saying. "The smell is already driving me wild. One night, just after he moved in, I smelled them. He happened to be eating on his balcony because there was this incredible sunset and a breeze. Anyway, I asked him what it was and he offered me some. Well, Eric was absolutely livid that I'd ask a total stranger what he was eating, and that I'd accept a sample. So I just invited Curt over for a drink and he and Eric got acquainted. Now, when Eric is out of town on business, which is about once a week, he's just uncertain enough to remember to call me every night."

Janie laughed and strutted over to the table by the pool where a cookout buffet of hamburgers, hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob and various salads was laid out. "Now we can dig in!" she proclaimed.

The milling crowd, mostly young people from their late twenties to early forties, didn't have to be coaxed out of the pool and away from the umbrella tables where they had been lounging. Meg backed away to assess the situation.

Janie reached out to put her arm around a tall Nordic-featured man who stood nearby. "Meg, this is my husband Eric. We'll wait until Curt gets down here before we fix our plates. There'll still be plenty of food. Come, sit down at our table. Gee, you don't talk much -- "

"She probably hasn't been able to get a word in sideways," Eric laughed.

Meg sat down in one of the plastic tubing chairs, aware of the people around her who were also finding places to eat their meals. Two men were talking behind her and she could not avoid hearing them.

"Oh, she had some funny material!" one man was saying in a deep baritone. "I heard that she's supposed to be back Friday night."

"I'll tell Robbie to catch her act. He's always looking for local talent to fill in during the summer when he can't get anyone to come to Florida."

Meg swallowed hard, then pasted a smile on her face. At that moment she decided Miss Buffy would remain in the far background tonight. The agitated voice of a woman cut into her consciousness.

"I'd spent six weeks on decorating that apartment on Sand Key. Then the client called me to say her husband had been transferred to Chicago -- and the couch hadn't even been delivered yet!"

Meg wanted to laugh. Buffy, she knew, was taking notes, dropping them into a mental file possibly marked "Upwardly Mobile."

Curtiss arrived, properly groomed and spotless again. Meg was not only starving for dinner but also frustrated by Janie's conversation while she was more interested in the snatches of chatter she heard around her.

"How long have you and Curt known each other?" Janie asked, obviously trying to give Meg an opening in the conversation.

Meg couldn't resist looking at her watch. She was pleased that Eric, at least, laughed. "Officially, I applied for a job with Curtiss's firm this morning, but we sort of ran into each other last night."

"Not in the 'Vette', I hope?" Eric suddenly looked horror-stricken.

"No," Curtiss volunteered. "At a night club -- the Funny Bone."

One of the men who had been sitting nearby leaned closer. "You were at the Funny Bone last night?" he asked.

"Yeah -- " Curtiss sighed, looking around.

"So was Pete! Pete?" he hailed someone who had gone back to the buffet for seconds. "Curt was at the Funny Bone last night -- "

"Yuh! Didn't you think that girl was terrific?"

Curtiss looked at Meg with a flickering glance. "Who?" he asked.

"Miss Buffy!" Pete laughed, returning to his place at the next table. "I loved the stuff she did about her car."

"I don't remember it," Curtiss said. "Do you?" he asked Meg, his gray eyes issuing a warning.

Miss Buffy was struggling to come to the surface. She was sorting through the lines she hadn't used, ones that needed more work, more exposure. This might be a good test audience to try them on before she presented them in front of a microphone.

Meg clenched her teeth and tried to look intelligently cordial. "She was amusing," Meg ventured and turned her attention to her plate. "Curtiss, the baked beans are very good."

"Amusing?" he asked, under his breath.

"I wouldn't go that far," Meg quipped dryly. "Beans are still beans."

Curtiss chuckled.

"She said her friend knew how fast she was going by the combination of numbers on the fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview mirror," Pete related. The line got a titter of laughter. "She's not a bad looking girl, either."

While Miss Buffy bristled at the amateurish mangling of a line she had spent three weeks working on, Meg shot Curtiss a questioning look. She hoped that, in the gathering night, her blush wouldn't show too much. She tried to hide behind the paper napkin she crumpled in her left hand. Miss Buffy wouldn't mind being recognized by the exuberant Pete, but Meg was certain that Curtiss would be mortified.

"Why don't you introduce Meg to everyone?" Janie asked.

Meg hoped Curtiss didn't choke on what he was swallowing. He had too much social awareness to refuse to introduce Meg to the people around him. Yet he could not be comfortable with the idea of divulging Meg's identity, which might lead to her alter ego being recognized, too.

Curtiss straightened his shoulders and turned to the table where Pete was sitting. "Everyone, this is Meg Buffington," he presented her hurriedly, slurring her last name. Then he introduced her to all the handsome young men with tans and broad chests who sat around the table.

Pete grinned broadly, nodded a bit more vigorously than he might have. She threw him a cautioning look, hoping no one else caught it.

It was fortunate that people were more interested in eating than in remembering names, Meg decided as everyone settled back to their dinners. The palm trees rustled overhead and the music filled in uncomfortable gaps.

She caught a look from Curtiss which was vaguely tense. Meg could have reminded him it was his idea to bring her here. But she could think of no tactful way to refresh his memory, so she bided her time with a generous slice of watermelon.

The man who was celebrating his birthday was presented with gifts, mostly jokes which Meg could not understand. Curtiss offered to help clear the buffet table, since he had not been around to set everything out as he had promised, and Meg felt obligated to help.

Someone turned up the sound system and played music for couples to dance at the far end of the pool. When she made the costly mistake of pausing with her hands empty, Pete came by and asked her if she would like to dance with him.

"Honey, I'd really like to," she heard Miss Buffy say, "but it will have to wait until after the dishes are done and the kids are put to bed."

How could she! Meg wanted to correct the erroneous impression she had left.

Suddenly she felt Curtiss's hand grab her arm and propel her toward the stairway that led to his apartment.

"What was that all about?" Curtiss demanded in a low growl.

"It just slipped out," Meg apologized contritely. "I mean, I would never dance with anybody before I got a chance to dance with you. If you were ever going to get around to asking me. But -- something just happens to me when -- I think of something -- funny -- "

Curtiss was angry. "I value honesty, Meg -- " he told her.

"I wasn't lying," Meg protested. "I was just -- well, haven't you ever heard people say things like that -- married people -- Really, Curtiss, I was just joking."

"Pete didn't know that," Curtiss protested, letting them into his apartment.

"I ask you, would he take me seriously?"

"I don't know him well enough to know whether he would or not."

"Let's just assume he would take it in the spirit it was given."

"Let's not. I never assume anything."

"Yes, you do," Meg argued, following him into his small kitchen. "You assume that someone with a sense of humor has something wrong with her. You assume that someone who is serious about a career shouldn't express any humor, or that it would stand in the way of serving clients. I think you'd better reassess your position."

Meg vented her anger on filling the sink with hot, sudsy water to soak the crusty pot that had once held Curtiss's barbecued beans. She searched for something to scrub with, only to have her way blocked by Curtiss's wiry body.

"You're something when you're angry -- " he commented softly, catching her off guard.

"I'm something when I'm not angry, too," she spouted at him. "Just you remember that."

There was a knock at the door, followed by the ringing of the doorbell. Curtiss turned to look through the living room, as though he could see through the solid door and discern who was on the other side.

He took a deep breath, which expanded the fabric of his knit shirt over his chest, then heaved himself away from the counter and strode toward the door. "Oh! Dave! I couldn't think who -- "

"Oh, come on," a deep voice laughed. "You bring a beautiful woman to the party tonight and disappear -- I think we all got the picture."

Meg found a scrubbing sponge under the sink and began to attack the bean pot, gritting her teeth against the heat of the water. She tried to make as much noise as possible so that she could not hear the conversation between Curtiss and his caller. It was, however, unavoidable, when they came to the kitchen in search of beer.

"But I don't generally advise individuals to buy stocks as such -- " Curtiss was saying, taking two cans of beer from the refrigerator. " -- Meg -- do you want a beer?"

"No, thanks," Meg grumbled. She made more of a job of scrubbing the pot than necessary, trying to make herself inconspicuous.

"It would take some time to go over all your assets and obligations to devise a program that satisfies your tax liabilities, estate planning -- "

"Whoa!" Dave laughed, a grin on his round face. "That sounds serious!"

"Without knowing your exact financial picture," Curtiss shrugged, "I hesitate to advise you on anything."

"There's a man who was telling me about -- " Dave drifted back toward the living room. Meg lost want he was saying when she dumped the water from the bean pot down the noisy drain. She wrung out the scrubber and rinsed the pot with plenty of cold water.

Leaning against the doorway to listen to Curtiss and Dave discuss investments, Meg couldn't avoid putting in her own two cents' worth. She knew even as she opened her mouth that Curtiss didn't want to hear anything she had to say on any topic. Yet, she felt it her duty to say something.

"Personally, I wouldn't have anything to do with that project," she advised. "The men involved have less than unsullied records so far as local business is concerned. But I guess neither of you would know that, being new to the area."

Curtiss frowned. "How do you know this?"

"Oh, come on! I've been working for -- "

"Oh, that's right," Curtiss mused, his brow furrowing. "Dave, if she says to steer clear of it, I think I'd take her seriously until I looked into the men's backgrounds. In fact, I'll follow up on it."

"How would it be if I get my tax records and everything together and meet with you late some afternoon this week?" Dave asked. "Off the top of my head, I think Thursday sounds good."

"I'll stop by your place tomorrow evening if I have any problem with that. I'll pick up your records to go over them before we meet, to save us some time," Curtiss proposed, seeing Dave to the door.

As the door closed behind Dave, Curtiss spun around and confronted Meg. "I don't approve of people giving free financial advice to one of my prospective clients -- "

"I wouldn't consider him a client until he's in your office," Meg pointed out angrily. "And I see nothing wrong with steering someone far, far away from some men my former employers considered shysters."

She picked up her purse from a table nearby. "Let's call it an evening, Curtiss."

"But -- "

"Look, there's only one way this evening is going," she sighed, edging toward the door. "Let's just cut it short and forget it."

Curtiss checked to see he had his car keys and followed her to where his Corvette was parked. "Meg, I'm sorry -- "

"Let's just chalk it up to a learning experience," Meg suggested. "I'm glad I learned you don't like me when I'm being funny, and you don't much care for me when I'm playing straight. I'm sorry; there's just the two of me. If I ever come up with a third ego, I'll drop her by to see if you approve."

"I think she just showed up," Curtiss growled. "Betty Bitter."

"No, she's my straight character. You're better off with Miss Buffy."

Curtiss looked disgruntled as he steered out onto the broad street and headed for her apartment.

"I don't know what you expected," she muttered, partly to herself. "An eight-by-ten glossy, I suppose."

"Let's leave it where it is," Curtiss cautioned angrily. "Forget what you owe me for the tires. I'll chalk it up to our learning experience." He made a derisive sound through his teeth. "It's cheap, at that."

"I pay my debts," Meg declared. "You'll get paid after I work the Funny Bone Friday night."

"Destiny be damned!" she muttered to herself when she had run into her new apartment and closed the door behind her.

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