Maybe she’d been talking to herself as well as Gloria, she thought, not sure she wanted to see the truth but unable to avoid it. Maybe she needed to be a little less bitchy with her own family. Not that she was bitchy with Madeline, but there was always that damned ambivalence lurking in the background, not to mention all the issues she had with her mother. Maybe she should—

“There you are,” Reid said as he walked into the room. “I’ve been looking all over for you. We have to talk.”

She turned slowly and looked at him. He was still one of the most handsome men she’d ever seen. Not perfect, but appealing on so many levels. She wanted to lean into his body and feel his heat. She wanted his arms around her, flesh on flesh, touching, reaching. She wanted to give herself up to him in a version of surrender that left her breathless.

On the heels of the longing came a fierce anger, both at herself for her weakness and at the man who caused it. He was easy enough to blame—especially considering what she’d so recently learned about him. In the land of Reid, the hits kept on coming.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said, moving close and staring into her eyes. “You have to help me. I’m totally screwed. Remember those kids, the ones I was supposed to send to their state finals? The ones who didn’t have a return ticket?”

He didn’t bother waiting for her to answer. “I called their coach. I wanted to make it right. Seth had sent a check and I thought things were fine. But the bastard only sent a thousand dollars. Some family got their car repossessed because of me and my manager only sent a thousand dollars?”

He ran his hand through his hair and stalked to the window. “How did this happen? How did everything get so messed up? You know what the guy said to me? The coach? I offered to send everyone to Disney World, you know, to make up for it. And he blew me off. He said they couldn’t afford my brand of charity.”

He turned back to her, looking genuinely confused. “It’s me,” he said. “Doesn’t that matter?”

Something inside of her snapped. She actually felt it go and heard the popping sound.

“You are exactly like your grandmother,” she began, aware of Gloria sleeping and keeping her voice low. “You are totally self-absorbed and selfish. I had thought, and let me tell you how stupid I feel about that now, that there was a person inside of you. I thought you might actually have some small crumb of decency. But you don’t. You’re nothing but a sex-starved, useless jerk. You’re taking up space that should go to someone who actually matters.”

She curled her hands into fists and fought the need to beat some sense into him. As if she could actually hit hard enough to make him notice.

“Start taking responsibility,” she told him, her voice thick with anger and contempt. “You keep blaming your manager, but ultimately, you’re responsible. So take the damn responsibility. Show up, do the right thing. It’s really not that hard. Oh, wait, you’d have to stop being the center of the universe. That will be tough.”

He stared at her. “What’s got up your butt?”

“Oh, right. It has to be me, right? I’m a hysterical female. Oooh, maybe I have my period. There’s a great excuse. But I’m going to say it anyway. Fire your damn manager. He’s making you look like an ass. You do that well enough on your own—you don’t need to pay someone to help with the process. You’re supposed to be some hotshot baseball player. Well, with that comes responsibility. Stop letting down little kids. Be a grown-up.”

“Why are you so mad at me?”

“Because you could be so much and you’re not. I hate wasted potential.”

He continued to watch her, looking confused, as if even he knew that couldn’t possibly generate that much energy. “What’s the real problem?”

“This isn’t real enough for you? Look at your life. There are Internet photos of you having sex. Reporters are chasing you down to talk about how lousy you are in bed. You’re being mocked on CNN. Do you sense a pattern here? You can’t even hire nurses for your sick grandmother without getting laid. You slept with Sandy and Kristie. During their interviews. People don’t do that. It’s tacky. It’s wrong. Honest to God, I’m not surprised to read that you’re bad in bed. Being good in bed would mean thinking about someone other than yourself.”

“HI,” LORI CALLED as she walked into her house after her shift.

“Hey, you,” Madeline said from the living room. “How was your day?”

“Not one I want to repeat.” Lori shrugged out of her coat as she crossed to the kitchen. Once there she dropped her coat on a chair, her purse on the kitchen table and opened the refrigerator. She always kept a bottle of Chardonnay on hand for emergencies and this certainly counted as a time of need.

“That bad?” Madeline asked as Lori dug in a drawer for a corkscrew.

“In some ways good. In others, worse.”

The cork popped out. Madeline collected a single glass and held it out. Lori took it and poured. Seconds later she swallowed a mouthful of the tart, fruity wine and sighed.

“Not better yet, but soon,” she breathed. “So how was your day?”

“Fine. Quiet. I had lunch with Julie. Do you remember her? She was my roommate in college and one of my bridesmaids.”

There had been eight and honestly, Lori hadn’t bothered to learn their names.

“Uh-huh,” she lied. “I’m glad you got out. You can’t hang out here all the time.”

Madeline tucked her auburn hair behind her ear and smiled. “I like hanging out here.”

Her sister didn’t fit the stereotype of the frail soon-to-be dead. She was a little pale and too thin, but that only added to her ethereal beauty. Madeline had been born beautiful and had never gone through anything resembling an awkward stage. It was one of life’s sassy attempts at humor.

Madeline ignored the bottle of wine—with her liver failing, she couldn’t drink. Not that she’d ever been very interested. Until recently, her sister hadn’t had to deal with very many upsets or disappointments. Lori supposed that getting a death sentence put other irritations in perspective.

“What happened?” her sister asked. “Gloria making you crazy?”

“Not so much. I think we had a breakthrough today.”

“Really? How did that happen?”

Lori explained about snapping and how Gloria had burst into tears and admitted to being lonely.

“She’s fully capable of changing,” Lori said. “The question is, will she?”

Madeline tilted her head. “I know you, Lori. That kind of moment with an elderly patient doesn’t send you to the wine bottle. It was something else. Something I’m going to guess is related to a certain ex-baseball player.”

Lori groaned. “Gloria lost it with me and I lost it with him. He was going on and on about how his agent screwed up and how horrible everything is.”

Her sister raised her eyebrows. “I’m going to guess you weren’t as supportive as he’d been hoping.”

“Not exactly.” She took another drink of the wine. “I didn’t mention this before because I didn’t want you to think…”

Lori paused. There was no way she could fool her sister. Madeline knew her too well.

“I was talking to Sandy a couple of days ago. Somehow it came up that Reid had slept with both her and Kristie during their interviews.” Her anger erupted again. “Can you believe it? Right there in his office at that stupid sports bar. It’s disgusting. He was supposed to be finding appropriate health care, not screwing the staff. Does he actually have a brain, or is that a myth? Are all men like that? Is he what they aspire to? Because I think he’s a nightmare on so many levels.”

Madeline’s green eyes were steady. “You’re upset that he slept with them and not you.”

“I am not. Never! I wouldn’t sleep with him if…” She swallowed, then nodded slowly. “More than upset. Humiliated. I’m not like them. I’ll never be like them. Guys like Reid don’t even see women like me, which is fine. I don’t want a man like him.”

“But you do,” her sister said softly. “You want exactly him.”

Lori scowled. “I’m working on the problem. I’ll get over him.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try to.”

“Oh, please. He would never be interested in me and I can’t accept who he is on the inside. He’s like cotton candy. Dunk him in water and he dissolves.”

“But you like him.”

“No. I don’t like him. I despise him. I just have a powerful chemical reaction to him. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“Sure it does. You’ve never reacted to a guy this way.”

“And I won’t ever again.” It wouldn’t work. He was everything she hated in men and she was invisible to him. Oh, yeah, that was a recipe for happiness and love.

She drew in a breath. “I told him off. It didn’t go well.”

“He’ll recover. Besides…” Madeline pushed off the counter and smiled. “Men are inherently stupid about women. You can use that to your advantage.”

Lori stared at her amazingly beautiful sister and knew that dozens of men had been stupid about Madeline, but they’d managed to keep their heads around her.

“I’ll figure out a way to manage this,” Lori said. “A way to get over him.”

“I still wish you’d try to make things work. You deserve a fling and Reid sounds like perfect fling material.”

Lori supposed it was really sweet of her sister to think that the choice was actually hers, but before she could say anything, there was a knock at the back door.

“Oh, good,” Madeline said, walking toward the rear of the kitchen. “She’s here.”

Lori got a knot in her stomach. “What did you do?”

Just then the back door opened and their mother walked in. She smiled at both women and held up two large bags.

“I brought Chinese,” Evie Johnston said. “You’ll have leftovers for days.”

“Great, Mom,” Madeline said as she put the bags on the counter, then hugged and kissed her mother. “It smells heavenly. I’m starved.”

“Good. I don’t think you’ve been eating enough.”

Evie stepped free of Madeline and smiled at Lori. “How are you?”

“Good.”

Lori smiled tightly as she battled both annoyance and the sense of being the odd one out. It didn’t matter that this was her house and these people were her family. Whenever she was around her mother and sister, she no longer belonged.

Evie faced Madeline. “You look good. Are you getting plenty of rest? You’re doing what the doctor says?”

Madeline laughed. “I’m fine, Mom. I feel terrific. Lori keeps me in line.”

“She should. She’s a nurse, you listen to her as well. Lori, you need to take better care of your sister.”

Lori ignored the criticism and began sorting through the boxes of takeout. She was used to her mother thinking she didn’t measure up. Years ago, when she, Lori, had announced that she was going to be a nurse, her mother’s semisober response had been, “You’ll never pass the tests to be an R.N. and you won’t enjoy emptying bedpans for a living. Try beauty school.”

Madeline and her mother continued talking. Lori set the kitchen table and put the food in the center.

She would be the first one to admit Evie’s life hadn’t been easy. She’d married young, gotten pregnant fairly quickly and had lost her husband to another woman before Lori, her second and unwanted child, had been born.

Evie had lived her whole life in a double-wide trailer, taking whatever jobs she could hang on to between drinking binges. The only bright spot in her otherwise grim existence had been to have one perfect daughter.

Madeline had been pretty from birth, an early talker and walker. She’d been popular, friendly, charming and open to the world. Lori had been none of those things and her mother had never forgiven her for it.

Evie carried plates to the table. “Lori, you shouldn’t drink wine. You know it’s bad for you. Plus Madeline can’t have any and it makes her feel uncomfortable to see it.”

Madeline grabbed Lori’s wineglass and set it by her place. “Mom, I’m fine with it. Lori works hard. If she wants a glass of wine at the end of the day, she should have it.”

“It’s not right,” Evie said, then pressed her lips together.

Lori wasn’t sure if her mother’s concern was really for Madeline or herself. Evie had been sober for nearly seven years.

“I’ll put it away,” Lori said as she shoved the cork in the bottle, stuck the bottle back in the refrigerator. “I wouldn’t have opened it if I’d known you were coming over.”

Evie looked at her. “I’m fine. Being around alcohol doesn’t bother me.”

“Then why do you always mention it?” Lori asked.

“Alcohol isn’t good for you.”

“You already said that. I hardly think an occasional glass of wine means I have a problem.”

“That’s how it starts.”

Lori swirled her glass. “You would know.”

“Yes, I would,” Evie told her. “I know you think I’m critical, but I’m just trying to help.”

By telling her everything she did wrong? But Lori didn’t say that. Instead she dumped her wine down the sink.

“I’ll get the iced tea,” Madeline said. “I made a fresh pitcher earlier today. Doesn’t that sound refreshing?”