"I'm turning over a new leaf. I promise."

Calm, Candace, calm. Who knew? Maybe Nolan was okay. Michelle was a grown-up; her life was her own. But that beautiful house was part Candace's, and legal issues aside, she hated the idea of some guy living there who didn't belong, didn't understand how precious a place it was. Or was she being selfish? Unreasonable? She could be both, she knew. If only Michelle didn't have such a dismal record.

"Can you just date him a little longer, get to know him better before he moves in?"

"I've known him a month, what more do you want?"

"Two months? Four? Eight? A year?"

"He needs a place now. I've got one."

"We've got one."

Candace sank down onto the one space on her couch not heaped with boxes and tried to calculate. She could put off traveling to Langford by a day or two. She'd wanted to get to Rosehill a couple of weeks early before starting her new job, but she didn't absolutely have to be there yet. Her furniture was going into storage regardless, while she stayed with her grandparents. "Here's an idea. How about if I come up and meet him, and if he's all you say, there will be no problem and I'm fine with him moving in."

"For God's sake, Candace, I'm not twelve."

No, you just act like it sometimes, Candace thought. Aloud, she said. "I know. But the house is mine too. And Andrew's. I know he has no plans of living there but it's his too. I think it's understandable I'd want to-"

"I think it's understandable that you should trust your own sister."

"Uh..." Based on what? "What is so bad about me visiting?"

Her red alert got redder. She'd just tossed the idea out there, hadn't really thought it through. Moving was plenty stressful enough, all her plans were in place, she hated to delay. But with Michelle objecting...

"It's just...you shouldn't...we shouldn't have to go through this."

"I'd like to meet him."

"Oh, um, well..."

Candace dropped her head into her hands. This was not good. If Michelle didn't want Candace to meet Nolan, that was proof positive he was more bad news, and Candace needed to get up there as soon as possible to protect her childhood home and to prevent her sister from screwing up her life exactly the way she always did. Exactly the way their mother had.

___________

"Michelle?" Candace called when she entered the house.

She wandered into the kitchen, glanced around and made a face. Cleaning was not Michelle's forte, though the place wasn't as bad as Candace had found it on her few other visits over the past six years. She crossed to the refrigerator, a side-by-side beauty that the delivery men had barely gotten through the kitchen door. Inside...yuck.

Classic Michelle. A few take-out containers, condiments, a rind of Parmesan cheese, one egg, half a lemon, pale celery, a shriveled apple and about two dozen beers. Mmm, mmm, good.

An hour later, she'd gone to the supermarket, come back, eaten a slice of very good pre-cooked tenderloin with veggies and fruit from the salad bar, cleaned up after herself and settled into the living room with a book from Grandad's library, which she and Michelle hadn't been able to get rid of.

At eleven, head pounding from tension and too tired to watch TV, Candace closed the book she wasn't really reading and stood. Odds were good she wouldn't be able to sleep for a while but she didn't want to wait down here anymore. Michelle could easily stay out until two or three. Candace needed her eight hours every night or she turned into a daytime zombie. Sleep to Michelle seemed more like a careless luxury.

Could they be any less alike? Candace's dark to Michelle's light, Candace's lifelong struggle against adding pounds to Michelle's effortlessly slender figure, Candace's practicality and love of order to Michelle's sloppy impulsiveness. They only had her mother's word they had the same father.

Candace sighed and started up the curving steps to the second floor. She'd wanted to get this confrontation- or, optimistically, this meeting-over with so she wouldn't have to think about it all night long. Good thing she'd brought sleeping pills, a new, stronger prescription the doctor said should help her relax on nights when she knew drifting off would take chemical help. Tonight was definitely one of those nights.

Upstairs, she pushed open the familiar door to her room and stopped dead. Michelle had removed all her personal items. Her stuffed animals from high school, her gymnastic awards, her ceramic animals bought with childhood allowance from a tiny, now-defunct store on the street, her floral bedspread and curtains, all gone.

Candace stalked to Michelle's room, which still looked exactly the same as always, except that the bed was actually made. Betty Boop clock, clothes strewn everywhere, makeup cluttering her dresser, jewelry scattered all over her desk among framed photographs and her clumsy teenage attempts at pottery.

Next stop, the master bedroom, which showed clear signs of habitation, including the unmade bed. Michelle and Nolan must be sleeping here. Next door, the guest room-Mom's girlhood bedroom-was unchanged, twin beds still covered in rose-colored quilts.

What was the deal with Candace's room? Was this Michelle's way of sticking it to her sister? Why not hang a big 'Candace No Longer Lives Here' sign on the front door? At least Michelle could have asked if trashing Candace's past was okay.

She slumped against the wall in the hallway, head throbbing, on the verge of tears. Maybe she shouldn't have come.

Except she had to make sure the house would be taken good care of, and she had to make sure Nolan wouldn't take Michelle on another one-way ride to heartbreak and/or self-destruction.

She took her makeup kit into the hall bathroom-cleaned recently, thank goodness-brushed her teeth and slugged down a sleeping pill. Tonight at least she'd sleep. Tomorrow she'd deal with all this, when she was refreshed.

But first, something for this headache. She scoured the medicine cabinet and pulled down a bottle of generic ibuprofen, popped the top and shook one into her hand, staring in the mirror while she filled a paper cup from the dispenser with water. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes and faint puffiness; the stress of the past few days and this damn headache had turned her pale. Ugh.

A split second before she tossed back the pill, she noticed it wasn't ibuprofen's usual brown-orange color. Funny. Most of the generics looked similar to the brand names. She studied the bottle. It said ibuprofen... Should she panic?

She was too tired.

Face washed, changed into the cream-colored cotton camisole and girl boxers she wore in the summer, she settled into bed with a book from her untouched bookshelf-at least Michelle left that alone.

Within twenty minutes, sleep started to overpower her to the point where her eyes crossed as she struggled vainly to keep them open. Whoa. Those new pills Dr. Bagin gave her were serious. The book slid off the bed; she couldn't even be bothered to stop its fall.

She reached for the light and nearly knocked the lamp off the table. Sleep. She had to. Now. No fighting it. She pulled the covers over her with arms that felt like forty-pound weights.

Very...potent...pills...

_____________

Nolan Carrington opened his eyes. Had he heard something or dreamed it? He frowned. The ceiling looked wrong. He lifted his head, grimacing at the effort. What the- The room wasn't remotely familiar. Where the hell was he? How did he get here? He couldn't remember a damn thing. His head dropped back; he tried to focus his fuzzy brain, which didn't want to focus at all. Was he still dreaming? He didn't think so.

Party...okay, yes, he'd been at a party. His brother John threw a bachelor party for a friend at a local bar. Right. That was it. He'd had a few drinks. More than usual. Some kind of vodka he thought, mixed with other stuff. His head still didn't feel right. Too big. Or maybe too small.

Wait. He hadn't had that many, had he? He'd never been blacked-out drunk in his life. Never. Not even close. Spins a few times, that was it.

But somehow he'd ended up here. Wherever here was. He squinted, frowning, trying to concentrate.

Wait. Something else was coming to him. At the party. Last thing he remembered he'd been talking to a beautiful brunette. A very hot beautiful brunette. An artist. No, she was in insurance. No. Both? Neither? He remembered thinking she was being awfully friendly and he remembered not minding at all. It had been a while since a woman came onto him.

Then...yes, someone had offered him another drink, a different one, "specialty of the house." Whatsisname, John's friend from college, from the group which never managed to graduate mentally from fraternity days. The one Nolan never liked or trusted. Still, he'd accepted. One more drink wouldn't hurt, that's what he'd thought, but then he'd stop. How many total? Three? Four? Not more.

The brunette had declined, rolling her eyes. Nolan had decided from something the fraternity jerk said that he and the brunette had a past, that her interest had ended but his hadn't. What was her name? Ann? Anna? Annie? Something.

He'd had the drink, was chatting with Annie...whatever. And then... Nothing. Nothing after that.

What the hell had he...Phil, that was his name. Phil. What had been in that drink? More than alcohol. Something that completely- He heard the sound again. The one that woke him. A low sigh/moan, the kind a woman makes when she's aroused.

Uh-oh. He turned his head and saw the outline of a shoulder against the barest glow from a streetlight creeping in around the shades. Speaking of the hot brunette. He must have gone home with her. No. He looked around the room again; this time the details clicked.

He'd brought her to Michelle's. He remembered that much now. He'd known better than to drive, so he'd walked here. Michelle had already given him a key to the house.

Okay, regroup.

So...this incredible artist-or-insurance-agent brunette had agreed to come home with him even wasted to the point where he could barely function? Wow. On a very shallow "guy" level, he was quite impressed with himself. She hadn't had the "specialty of the house" spiked with God knew what, so her decision must have been based on actual rational thought. Or as rational as thought could get when hormones took control.

So, hey. He'd left thirty behind a couple of years ago, but he wasn't dead yet. His one-night stand stirred and rolled to her back, head turned away from him. Funny, he remembered her hair shorter. But then who knew what had happened to his mind last night? And while he was at it, who knew what had happened to his body?

Whatever it was-and from the hungry way she'd looked at him it promised to be good-he couldn't believe he'd missed it.

He turned on his side, gazing down at what he could see of her. She smelled good. Womanly and fresh. He hadn't noticed last night in the crowded room. Maybe she wouldn't mind a replay of whatever they did when they got here. He was still under the influence of something, but this time he was pretty sure he'd remember the whole thing..

"Hey. Ann...nn...ie."

"Mmph."

She moved again, turned toward him. The sheet slid off her shoulder to reveal the top few inches of a low-cut and very sexy clingy camisole which she filled out much better than he'd have thought from the slender frame he remembered. He hadn't even undressed her? Had they been in that much of a frantic hurry? Damn, why couldn't he remember?

Unless...nothing had happened. Maybe he'd completely humiliated himself by not being able to perform under the influence of whatever jerk-Phil spiked that last drink with. He hoped he'd at least made something happen for her.

Maybe he hadn't even been able to do that. Maybe that was Phil's plan. He cringed. This time he'd do everything right. His body was already reacting, just to her nearness.

"Ann." He traced her plunging neckline with a gentle finger.

"Mmm." She frowned and pursed her lips, which were gray in the dim light, but which he remembered as red and full, the kind you wanted to kiss the second you saw them.

"You're beautiful," he whispered. "Even more beautiful than last night when I could see you."

That didn't come out right. His brain was definitely still muddled. But another part of his body was wide-awake and full of a very clear purpose. She looked like a black-and-white movie star, her skin the creamy end of gray where it had been gold in the light, her hair jet-black where it had been reddish brown. Cream-gray breasts, black shadow between them. His lips found the spot; her soft, round flesh embraced his jaw.