She glanced around the bedroom, scanning the shopping bags, the boxes. The right thing to do, she told herself, was to put everything away, to tidy up, to put at least this part of her life in order.

She was just unwrapping a new blouse when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Clutching the blouse, she stared at Mac as he stopped at the top of the suite.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. I thought everyone had gone."

"I stayed," he said simply, then crossed to her. He glanced down at the blouse she continued to hold in white-knuckled fingers. "Nice color."

"Oh. Yes. Your mother picked it out." Feeling foolish, Darcy relaxed her fingers and turned away to hang the blouse in the closet. "I was so rude, leaving that way. I'll apologize to everyone."

"There's no need for that."

"Of course there is." She spent several seconds adjusting the shoulders of the blouse on the padded hanger as if their evenness was of monumental importance. "It's just that everything seemed to hit me all at once." She went back to unfold slacks, then repeated the procedure, lining up the edges of the hem perfectly.

"That's understandable, Darcy. It's a lot of money. It'll change your life."

"The money?" Distracted, she glanced back, then fluttered her hands. "Well, yes, I suppose the money's part of it."

He angled his head. "What else?"

She started to pick up a box, then set it back on the bed and wandered to the window. It still felt odd to stand there against the glass, with a world she'd only begun to touch spread like a banquet at her feet

"Your family's so… beautiful. You have no idea what you have. You couldn't. They've always been yours, you see, so how could you know."

She watched the signs of the casino across the street, beckoning, daring, inviting. Win, Win, Win.

It wasn't so terribly hard to win, she thought. But it was much, much trickier to keep the prize.

"I'm a watcher," she told him. "I'm good at it. That's why I want to write. I want to write about things I see, or want to see. Things I'd like to feel or experience." She lifted her hands to rub her arms, then made herself turn back to him. "I watched your family."

She looked so lovely, he thought. And so lost. "And what did you see?"

"Your father playing with your mother's hair when they sat together in the lounge last night." She saw the confusion in his eyes and smiled. "You're used to seeing them touch each other—casually, affectionately, so you don't notice when it happens. Why would you?" she murmured, swamped with envy. "He put his arm around her, and she leaned into him, sort of…" Eyes half-closed, she moved her body as if yearning for another. "Settled into the curve because she knew exactly how she'd fit there."

Darcy closed her eyes, laid a hand over her own heart as she brought the scene back into focus. "And while he talked to me, he toyed with the ends of her hair. Tangled them, combed them through, wound the strands around his finger. It was lovely. She knew he was doing it, because there was a little light in her eyes. I wonder if it takes another woman to recognize that."