Shay dabbed at her face with a wad of tissue. “I know, I know. But I love him, Garrett.”

“Enough to let him be himself?”

“Yes,” Shay answered after a long time. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

Garrett chuckled. “I guess I called at a bad time. I’ll get back to you later, sweetheart. Keep the faith.”

Shay might have protested, but for the strange bumping-and-thumping sound coming from the stairway. “If you were calling about this year’s camping trip, Hank is all for it.”

Garrett promised to call again and hung up.

“Shay?”

She turned on the sofa to see Mitch leaning against one side of the library doorway. Despite his attempt at nonchalance, he looked wan and haggard and Shay felt a painful tightening in her heart. But fear for him made her voice cool. “Yes?”

“I won’t go if it’s that important to you. I’ll write a novel or something.”

Shay felt all broken and raw inside. “You’ll only be racing for two or three weeks, won’t you? Actually driving the cars, I mean?”

She thought she saw hope leap in the depths of his dark, dark eyes. “Three weeks at the most,” he promised hoarsely.

“I’ll hate every minute of it. I love you, Mitch.”

He disappeared around the corner, came back in a moment dragging a very large and very dusty cardboard rainbow. A shower of glued-on glitter fell from the colorful arch as Mitch pulled it across the room and propped it against his desk.

“I think this is one of those rainy days we talked about,” he said.

Shay felt tears sting her eyes. It was late July and the sun was shining, but Mitch was right. She held out her arms to him and he came to her, drawing her close, burying his face in the warm curve of her neck.

“I love you,” he said.

Shay tangled the fingers of one hand in his hair. It was dusty from his foraging expedition in the attic. “And I love you. Too much to keep you here if that’s not what you want.”

“You could go with me.” His hand was working its way under her sweater, cupping one breast, not to give passion but to take comfort.

“Of course I’ll go.”

Mitch lifted his face from her neck, let his forehead rest against hers. His fingers continued to caress her breast, after dislodging her bra. “Thank you,” he said.

“I’d better get at least a dedication out of this,” Shay warned. “I don’t exactly enjoy standing around racetracks with my heart stuffed into my sinuses, you know.”

Mitch had found her nipple and his fingers shaped it gently. “My other books were dedicated to you. Why would this one be different?”

Shay was kneeling on the sofa now, her forehead still touching Mitch’s. He had dedicated her mother’s book to her, and the one about Alan Roget, too. She couldn’t for the life of her remember what he’d said in those dedications, though. She groaned softly with the pleasure he could so easily arouse in her. “Is this the part where we work out a treaty?”