"Oh, have you already read my best-selling book on this subject?"
Ignoring that, Sloan said, "Would I be correct in assuming that the 'someone else' in your philosophy is probably female?"
"How did you guess?"
"Isn't that a little sexist?"
"I don't think of it that way," he declared with outrageous gall. "I think of it as delegating responsibility." The bacon was cooking in the microwave, and Noah sniffed appreciatively. "That smells delicious."
She sent him a smile over her shoulder. "Does it?"
"I'm partial to omelettes, and I'm starved."
"Want to hear my philosophy on cooking?" Sloan warned.
"I don't think so."
She told him anyway: "He who does not help with the cooking does not get to help with the eating."
"Okay, I'm ready. Give me an assignment. Make it a tough one."
Without turning, she passed him a knife and green pepper over her right shoulder. "Here you are. A green pepper."
He grinned at her back. "I had something more macho in mind."
She passed him the onion.
Noah laughed, enjoying himself hugely. He began to peel off the outer layer of the onion. "I hope the guys at the bowling alley don't hear about this. I'll be ruined."
"No you won't. Knives are good. They're macho."
In answer he picked up a dish towel and snapped it, landing a soft whack on her buttocks.
"Better not try that on me, Noah," Courtney said, sauntering forward. Leaning her elbows on the counter, she perched her chin on her fists and regarded him with prim superiority. "Sloan has been showing me some excellent self-defense moves. I can toss you on your—ouch," she said as the dish towel landed with more force on her rump.
She glared at him in mock affront; then she looked at Sloan. "Do you want me to take him down for that, or are you going to do it?"
Before Sloan could reply, Noah plopped a tomato from Sloan's pile onto the cutting board in front of Courtney and handed her a knife. "Sloan was just telling me her philosophy about cooking. Let me share it with you."
Courtney picked up the knife and made a halfhearted attempt to saw on the tomato. "Eeeeuw, this is disgusting," she said. "I am never going to get on the Sally show. This house is beginning to feel like real people live here."
Douglas walked in soon after, when the chopped onion was sautéing and all the preparation work was done. "By any chance," he asked Sloan, "is there enough for an extra person?"
"More than enough," she said.
Courtney was irate. "You can't eat because you didn't do any work."
"But—there's nothing left to do," Douglas replied, innocently looking around.
Noah gave him a knowing look. "Nice timing."
"I thought so," Douglas shamelessly replied, and settled into a chair at the kitchen table.
34
"It's after midnight," Sloan said as she strolled along the beach toward Carter's house, her hand held in Noah's warm clasp, his long fingers entwined with hers. Her senses were alive to his touch, his nearness, even the sound of his deep, rich voice.
"I had fun," he said.
"I'm glad."
"You make everything seem like fun."
"Thank you."
Quietly, and without emphasis, he added, "I'm crazy about you."
Sloan's heart slammed into her ribs. I love you, she thought. "Thank you," she whispered, because she couldn't tell him the truth.
He slanted her a sidewise smile. "Is that all?" he asked, sounding a little disappointed.
Sloan stopped. "No, it isn't," she said softly, and leaning up on her toes, she told him with her kiss what she dared not tell him with words. His arms closed around her, kissing her back, his body hardening quickly against hers.
He loved her, too, she thought.
They were partway across the back lawn, near Carter's putting green when Sloan belatedly remembered the infrared beams and her hand flew to her throat. "I forgot about those things!"
"What things?"
She laughed at her nervous fright. "The infrared beams—If the security system had been on, we'd have tripped the beams when we started across the lawn. Dishler must have seen me go out and bypassed the beams so they wouldn't be activated when the security system was armed."
"Either that," Noah joked, "or the cops are pulling up to the front door right now."
"No," Sloan reassured him. "Paris told me that when the alarm is tripped, all the house lights go on and the sirens go off."
"What?" he joked. "Haven't you ever heard of a silent alarm that goes straight to the police station?"
Not only had Sloan heard of that, she could have told him how to wire and install one. Rather than add one more thing to the list of items he was going to feel deceived about later, she said brightly, "I know all about that stuff."
He tightened his hand in a playful squeeze. "I'll just bet you do," he said, and Sloan was immediately wary.
"Why do you say that?"
"Simple logic and brilliant insight. Combined, they lead me to conclude that a woman who learns self-defense to protect herself when she's walking on the street would undoubtedly have a very good security system to protect herself when she sleeps. Am I right?" he said with smug superiority.
"I can't deny—" Sloan began, just as a shadowy figure on an upstairs balcony called softly, "Hi, you two!"
It was Paris, wearing a robe, standing at the railing.
"How are you feeling?" Sloan asked.
"Much better. I slept all day, though, and now I'm wide awake. Paul and Father both came in around eleven, but they went straight to bed. I was thinking of going down to the kitchen and making some hot chocolate. Do you want some?"
Sloan said yes; she would have said yes if she was falling asleep on her feet, but Noah shook his head and stopped at the back door. "I'm a little tired, and I couldn't ingest another molecule of anything." He wasn't too tired to give her a long and very thorough kiss good-night, or to continue to hold her in his arms afterward, which gave Sloan the thrilling feeling that he didn't like to leave her. Leaning forward, he unlocked the back door with the key she gave him and swung it open. "I'll call you in the—"
Paris's scream cut him off. "Great-grandmother!—No—Help me!"
Sloan whirled and raced through the doorway and down the back hall in the general direction of Paris's scream, with Noah right behind her. Beyond the kitchen was a cozy study where Edith had been watching television earlier, and the scene that greeted Sloan struck terror in her heart. Edith was lying slumped over on the sofa with Paris bending over her, trying to turn her over. "Oh, my God, oh, my God," Paris was moaning. "A heart attack. No one here with her…"