“He was with Rachel,” Claire said. “They have history. They have a bond. She’s staying with him. She was looking me over like competition. I’ve seen it before. Women do it to you all the time.”

Sydney looked flabbergasted and indignant, which, when Claire thought about it later after she had calmed down, was nice. Her sister was mad on her behalf. “He had another woman over there?”

Claire thought of those photographs of her grandmother with a series of smitten boys. “I don’t need a photo of a man looking at me as if he loves me. I’m fine. Aren’t I fine?”

“You really want me to answer that right now?”

Claire put her hand to her forehead. She was still so hot. This was unbearable. “I don’t know how to do this. Maybe I’ll just go out to the garden and every once in a while he can come by and we won’t talk about it afterward but the apple tree will thank him, like last time.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Claire let her hand fall to her side. “I feel like a fool.”

“That, dear sister, is step one.”

“Do you think you could write it down? I have the recipe all wrong,” she said, and turned to walk up the steps. “I’m going to take a bath.”

“You just took one this afternoon.”

“I smell like desperation.”

Sydney chuckled. “You’ll be fine.”

Claire changed out of her dress and put on her old seersucker robe. She was looking for her slippers when her bedroom door opened.

She could only stare, dumbfounded, as Tyler entered and ominously closed the door behind him. She grabbed the lapels of her robe, which was ridiculous, considering what she’d just gone over to his house to do.

“Why did you change out of that dress? I love that dress. But I like the robe too.” His eyes slid down her body. “Why did you come to see me tonight, Claire?”

“Please forget it.”

He shook his head. “I’m through forgetting. I remember everything about you. I can’t help it.”

They stared at each other. Take one man and one foolish woman and put them in a bowl. This wasn’t going to work.