That Special Smile/Whittenburg Read Online Free Page B

assumption that he was enamored of her sister. He didn’t know how he’d managed to keep from groaning aloud when she’d accused him of flirting with her to make Juliette jealous. There was no way of knowing what Julie might have said to give Sylvie the wrong impression. After all, Julie said so very many things.
    Sylvie, on the other hand, was more cautious.
    She was worlds removed from Julie’s delightful, but exhausting zaniness. That in itself, he supposed, could be reason enough for this inexplicable attraction he was feeling. But Max didn’t really think his newly awakened interest was rooted in shallow challenges.
    There was more to it than that.
    He raised his hand in answer to Juliette’s wave; then his eyes sought Sylvie and watched her carry a sack of groceries toward the house.
    Sylvie Anne.
    Max turned all three syllables over in his mind. An interesting name, an intriguing woman.
    Not such a bad way to begin the weekend, after all, he thought with a smile as he turned and went inside.
     

Chapter Two
     
    “Didn’t I tell you, Sylvie? Isn’t he absolutely...?” The sentence dwindled into an optional ending, as Juliette’s sentences so often did.
    From a ladder-back chair beside the kitchen table Sylvie watched her sister put groceries into cupboards and refrigerator.
    “I couldn’t believe it when I found out he lived next door.” With a shake of her short blond curls Juliette lifted the carton of milk and held it against her lavender T-shirt as she balanced eggs, cheese, bacon, and a can of ready-made biscuits in her arms. “Honestly, who would have thought I could be so lucky?”
    “The thought certainly never entered my mind,” Sylvie said dryly. “But then I know what terrible luck you’ve always enjoyed when it comes to men.”
    Juliette crinkled her nose and then giggled with her usual irrepressible delight. “And I always do enjoy it.”
    It was no less than the truth, and Sylvie had to smile. She sometimes wondered if her sister had any idea that thousands of women went days, even weeks, at a time without meeting any interesting men.
    “But this time….” Juliette paused for an instant while she carefully added a small container of taco dip to her cache. “Why the chances of moving next door to a man as good-looking as Max must be a million to one.” She turned and took two steps to the refrigerator door, which Sylvie rose to open for her. “My God, Sylvie, he’s even single!”
    “Which should have been your first clue, Juliette.” Sylvie moved back to the table in the center of her sister’s small red-and-white kitchen. She surveyed the remaining groceries and the cabinets, trying to match one with the other. “No man reaches the age of thirty-five single, unattached, and self-supporting, without either intending to continue in that state or being unable to persuade some unsuspecting female into helping him change it.” She looked dubiously at a jar of ready-to-serve gravy before tucking it into the cabinet above the sink. Out of sight, out of mind. “And from my limited observation,” she continued. “I don’t think your neighbor could charm his way out of a rain barrel.”
    Juliette straightened and stepped back to let the refrigerator door close. “Well, Max certainly made an impression on you, didn’t he? What on earth did he do?”
    “He didn’t do anything. I just didn’t care for his casual attitude.”
    Bracing a hand against the counter top, Juliette tilted her head to one side and her blue eyes became mildly appraising. “His attitude about what?”
    Sylvie stood on tiptoe to push a package onto the top shell. “Oh, his clothing, for one.”
    “I guess that means he wasn’t wearing a suit and tie,” Juliette replied with a touch of sarcasm. “Sylvie, you have to stop believing that real men always wear pinstripes!”
    Sylvie’s frown came from years of experience in dealing with a sassy younger sister. “I happen to like the way a man looks in