Impishly, she pinched him with the fingers of both hands. “I ask you, did you spare my feelings when my cheeseballs bombed at the mayor’s party? No. You said you wouldn’t feed them to a dog!”

“Actually, I may have spoken prematurely. I met a Doberman once, in Rio, who richly deserved one.”

She laughed and the sound made a sweet, lonely ache inside Mitch. He’d never wanted anything as much as he wanted to marry this woman and share his life and his bed with her. As it was, they were together only when their schedules permitted, which wasn’t often. “I love you,” he said.

There was a puzzled look in her wide eyes for a moment, then she stood on tiptoe to kiss his chin. “Stay with me.”

“I can’t and you know it,” Mitch snapped, irritated. “What would we tell Hank in the morning? That we’re carrying on a cheap affair?”

Her lower lip jutted out. “Is that what you think this is, Mitch?”

He held Shay closer, desperate for the feel and scent and warmth of her. “You know damned well that that isn’t what I think!”

She pinched him again, her eyes dancing with mischief. “Not even after what we did in my office yesterday?” she whispered.

Heat flowed up over Mitch’s chest in a flood, surging along his neck and into his face. He swatted Shay’s delectable rear end, hard, with both hands. “You little vamp, are you trying to drive me crazy or what?”

She wriggled against him. “Ooo-la-la!” she teased.

“Shay!”

She was running her hands up and down his hips and his sides. He remembered the episode she had mentioned a moment before, and Halloween night, when she’d saved him from demons that had nothing to do with the thirty-first of October. “Stay with me,” she said again. “We’ll set the alarm and you can leave before Hank gets up.”

He set her away from him. “No, dammit. No.”

Shay’s eyes widened with confusion and hurt as he snatched up his jacket and the copy of the new book and started toward the door. “Mitch—?”

He paused, his hand on the knob. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, and then he opened the door and went out.

She followed him down the walk, to the front gate and as he tried to outdistance her, she broke into a run. “What’s wrong?” she asked, taking hold of his sleeve and stopping him. “Tell me what’s wrong!”

“We’re wrong, Shay. You and I.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Not the way you’re taking it, no.” Mitch sighed and scanned the cold November sky before forcing his eyes back to her face. “We should be able to share a bed without having to orchestrate it, Shay.”

She receded. “You mean, we should be married.”

“You said it, I didn’t. Remember that.” He opened the gate, went through it and got into his car.

Alice was in the kitchen dishing up pumpkin pie. Shay had baked so much of it for her Thanksgiving customers that she couldn’t face the stuff, so she poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at the table.