It should have been a perfectly romantic evening. The lighting was soft, the music was seductive, the wine was cold. Even the weather had cooperated, in the form of an early-summer Arizona rainstorm that thrummed on the roof with a hypnotic rhythm. It was the kind of night that invited snuggling up together and forgetting the rest of the world existed.

And it would have been that kind of night, had everything gone according to Holly Aldridge's plan. Instead things had started going downhill from the moment her boyfriend Brad came home to the cozy Craftsman-style bungalow they shared, swearing and dripping rainwater onto the foyer tile. He stripped off his wet suit jacket and, tugging at his tie, came toward her in the darkness.

"Power go out?"

"Nooo."

"Then what's with all the candles, Holly? I can hardly see a thing in here," he complained, finally whipping off his tie with a last irritable tug.

He's had a hard day, Holly thought. Be nice to him. She patted the sofa cushion. "Mood lighting. You'll get used to it in a minute. Come sit by me."

He did, first catching hold of her feet and swinging her legs up onto the coffee table to make more room. So much for her seductive pose. She leaned into him and lay her head on the rain-dampened curve of his shoulder. "Tough day?"

Brad dropped his head back and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. "Yeah, you could say that."

"Sorry," she murmured, turning her head a little to glance up at him. Even wet and grouchy he looked good, like a glossy sort of Young Republican Posterboy; not a single dark hair deviated from its prescribed course. Holly admitted to no one but herself Brad was more skilled with mousse than she was.

She didn't want to ask about his day and be treated to an hour-long discourse on the impossibleness of practicing medicine on a bunch of patients who-as Brad put it-wouldn't recognize common sense if it fell on their heads. Once Brad got started on that, things would really go awry. So she slid a little closer and started to undo his top shirt button.

"Holly."

Buttons two and three down. He was always telling her how he was tired of making the first move. Tonight would be different. She moved lower and tackled button number four.

"Holly." This time Brad caught her wrists in his hands, as though she'd maul him if unrestrained. "Give me a little time to decompress, okay? It's been a long day."

"Okay. Sure." He let go of her wrists and pulled the ends of his shirt together again. Paradise lost. "How about a drink, then?" Holly asked brightly, filling two wineglasses with pale rosé and handing him one.

He drained his glass and set it back on the glass-topped wrought-iron coffee table with a thunk that set the tabletop ringing, completely bypassing the coasters Brad usually insisted on using. Holly frowned. Either he was very, very thirsty or his mood was even worse than she'd thought. She splashed more rosé into his glass, hoping it was the former. When Brad finally looked at her, fixing her with what she immediately recognized as his I'm-serious-as-Hell look, Holly knew it was the latter.

"I'm sorry, Holly," he said, now looking everywhere but at her. "Really sorry. But I just can't do this anymore. You and me...it's not working; things just aren't right for me."

Cold trickled down her spine. Of course things were right. She'd planned everything, right down to his favorite ratatouille simmering on the stove, down to the CDs she'd programmed on the stereo, down to the perfume the tastefully made-up woman at the Esteé Lauder counter had assured Holly was "irresistible, dear." She wouldn't have gone to such trouble for a doomed relationship, would she?

"What do you mean?" Her voice sounded faraway, broken. She finished off her wine for fortification and glanced over at him. Any second now he'd come out with some clichéd thing like, "I need some space, that's all," and she'd nod her head wisely and tell him she'd been thinking exactly the same thing about herself, wasn't that funny, ha ha. And then she'd brain him with the wine bottle and boot him out into the rain.

"I-" he spread out his arms in a choreographed sort of helpless gesture, careful not to actually touch her. "I've got to get away for a while, do some thinking. I guess I just need some space, that's all."

Oh, God. "Brad, I-" Her lower lip trembled, her chin wobbled. She would not cry, she wouldn't. Holly poured more rosé and gulped it down. "I. . .that's funny, 'cause I was just thinking the same thing," Holly croaked. It lacked a certain conviction, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

He lay both hands on his thighs and pushed up from the sofa. "I knew you'd understand," he said, ruffling her hair as he passed by. So much for her carefully-arranged, seductive hairstyle.

"Mmmm-what's that great smell?" he went on, looking brisk and assured. Whew, his expression said, Glad that's over with! Brad hated scenes. "Mind if I eat before I pack up? I'm starving."

"It's ratatouille," she replied numbly. "Help yourself."

~ ~ ~

"Help yourself? You actually said to him, 'Gee, Brad, help yourself'? Oh, Holly."

Feeling miserable, Holly slumped down further into her kitchen banquette's corner, resting her cheek against its soft yellow upholstery.

"Quit shaking your head at me, Clarissa. Come on, it wasn't as dumb as it sounds. It just popped out. I couldn't help it."

"Uh-huh."

"It was supposed to sound cosmopolitan. 'Sure, darling-of course we can still be friends,' something like that. You know. And I didn't say, 'gee,' either," Holly added indignantly. "God, you're supposed to be my friend! What am I supposed to do now?"

Clarissa gave her a sympathetic look. "Sorry. I didn't realize Brad the Bad meant so much to you."

"Ha, ha." With a sigh Holly wrapped one arm around her upraised knees and reached for her cup of cappuccino-courtesy of the espresso machine Brad had left behind. She'd need to drink a gallon of the stuff to feel awake after what she'd been through. Maybe two gallons. In fact, maybe she should just skip a step and gnaw on the coffee beans. The wine she'd drunk last night had been a mistake, especially when followed by a can of Brad's orphaned beer and a vodka chaser. She didn't know what she'd been thinking.

"I feel like such an idiot. I didn't even see it coming. How could I be so blind?"

"You weren't blind, he was stupid," Clarissa replied loyally. "What kind of cheesy line is that anyway? 'Babe-" she flipped her long pale hair over her shoulders and pantomimed a Brad-like stance, both hands on her hips with her chest thrust forward, "-I need my space.' Didn't that line go out about the same time lava lamps did?"

Holly managed a brief smile. Clarissa was right-Brad's reasons for ending their relationship were weak, but the fact of the matter was, he didn't really need an excuse. He only needed to be gone for it to be over, and he was. She was all alone.

Lord, she sounded pathetic. Poor me. Pity party. Get a grip already, Holly commanded herself. You've got a good job, good friends, a good life. Where's your self-respect?

"Anyway, I have a plan," she said aloud.

Clarissa grinned. "Somehow, I thought you would."

"What's funny? In case you haven't noticed, this could be considered a tragic moment in my life, here." She picked up a pen and opened her day planner, trying to ignore her friend's skeptical expression. "Okay. Brad and I have been together for a little over a year now. No problems until last night."

"Really? That's amazing."

"You're turning into a cynic."

Clarissa gathered up both coffee cups and carried them to the sink. "No, really-" prompted by Holly's meaningful glance at the brown-ringed porcelain cups, she turned on the tap and gave each cup a cursory swish "-didn't the two of you ever argue? About anything?"

"Nope."

"Hmmph." Clarissa grabbed a cinnamon-raisin bagel from the basket on the kitchen table and settled back on the other banquette, picking out the raisins with her long red manicured fingernails. She popped a raisin in her mouth, then another. "I've got to be honest here, Holly-Berry. That's abnormal."

"It's true," Holly insisted, printing one last note into her day planner. "Maybe we didn't argue because we were so well-suited for each other."

"Well-suited? Did we warp back into the dark ages when I wasn't looking? What are you talking about, well-suited? I don't think arranged marriages are happening anymore."

"Very funny." Ticking off each similarity on her fingers, Holly said, "Brad and I are the same age. We went to the same schools. Both of us grew up here. We've got the same goals-"

"Career, career, and. . .career?" Clarissa suggested.

"No, I mean life goals. Like we both want a family." Or at least Brad hadn't actively discouraged her on those few occasions when she'd talked about having children together someday. Holly tilted her head sideways, thinking. There had to be more things they had in common. "We're even the same height," she announced triumphantly.

Twirling the remains of her bagel on one finger, Clarissa said, "Really? I always thought Brad was taller than you."

"I slouched," Holly admitted. They both grinned. Meanly. "But all the right elements were there, and I'm not just going to let this pass me by. I'm practically thirty-"

"Nearly dead," Clarissa broke in, nodding and grinning.

"-and it's time I settled down."

Clarissa shook her head. "You've got to be the most settled down person I know. You've got a retirement plan. You've got coordinated bath towels, for crying out loud. Even my mother doesn't have towels that all match."

Holly's towels did match. Down to the washcloths they were all a suitably masculine burgundy color, the only one she and Brad had both liked. "There's more to life than decorating," Holly said, ignoring Clarissa's raised eyebrows. "Besides, Brad and I had a good relationship. Maybe we were taking each other for granted, maybe some of the spark went out of things, but I think we had something worth saving," she insisted.

Clarissa looked doubtful. Well, let her, Holly thought rebelliously. It wasn't Clarissa's love life that'd taken a nose dive. Clarissa had been happily married for three years now; she could afford to take the high moral ground.

Squinting at the notes she'd penned neatly into her day planner, Holly said, "Anyway, my theory is what we've got here is a fear of commitment. I think Brad and I just got so close it scared him."

"I guess so. Maybe."

"Your enthusiasm is too much for me," Holly muttered wryly. She gathered her convictions again. "It's like I said. Maybe Brad and I were just taking each other for granted and we got caught in a rut, or something," she explained, hoping her reasoning sounded more convincing to Clarissa than it suddenly did to her.

Last night, lying in bed alone, it had all made perfect sense. Unfortunately, Holly really hadn't come up with any better interpretations since then. Her feelings, her love life, her pride were at stake; her life didn't feel like it was supposed to anymore, and Holly couldn't bear to sit back and do nothing at all about it.

"I mean, Brad didn't actually say we were through, not in so many words..."

Clarissa gaped at her. "Oh, jeez, tell me you don't mean what I think you mean-"

Holly nodded, smiling down with renewed hope at the notes she'd made. Her Plan. She felt a little better already, just looking at it. "You guessed it. I'm going to win Brad back. I've already got it all planned out. And I'll need your help to do it."

Clarissa smacked her palm against her forehead. "Lord help us," she cried. "That's just what I was afraid of."

~ ~ ~

Sure, now it was his desk he emptied out, and his things were going into a battered old box instead of a backpack, but as he wedged the last file folder beneath his weighty American Literature text, Sam doubted he'd crack a book again before autumn rolled around. No books, no suits, no ties - he planned to pack up his razor, too, and really relax. It was a good feeling.

Not even the prospect of working for his Dad's construction company all summer was enough to dampen his spirits. A guy had to eat, after all. It was worth the inevitable get-a-haircut-and-get-a-real-man's-job lecture from his father that was the price of admission. In a way, it was Sam's own personal penance for not going into the family business.

"Okay, I'm outta here," he said, hefting the box in his arms. Malcolm Jeffries, campus advisor for returning students and Sam's office-mate for the past semester, sniffed vaguely but didn't bother to look up. He'd made his disapproval of what he called Sam's "unorthodox teaching methods" plain from the start, and Malcolm was nothing if not unvarying in his opinions. It had made for a bumpy partnership.

Today, not even Malcolm's standardized-test-approach to life could get to Sam. "Hey, have a good summer," he told Malcolm with a grin. "See you next fall."

The grunt he received in response could've meant anything. Optimistically decoding the sound as, "You, too," Sam turned toward the door and all but ran into one of his students, Jillian Hall.

Affectionately known to the student body as Jiggly Jillie, Jillie lived up to her nickname and then some. Even when standing still, like she was now, Jillie's blonde froth of permed curls, combined with the twirl of her summery short skirt and the sway of her breasts beneath her t-shirt, somehow gave the impression of perpetual motion. It was quite a phenomenon.

"Professor McKenzie, I'm so glad you're here," she said, a little breathlessly. "I wanted to talk to you about my research paper."

She was watching him so earnestly, with such intensity, it looked as though her wide blue eyes might cross at any second. Sam shoved all jiggly thoughts aside and tried to assume a more professorial demeanor. "Sure, Jillie. What's on your mind?"

"Well, there must've been some kinda mistake on my research paper. I can't have gotten a D," she wailed, holding up a stack of typed pages for him to see. "If I don't do better than that in this class, my financial aid is history!"

Sam took the papers she was waving at him. He recognized them all right; it had taken him four aspirin and several cups of coffee to finish reading and grading those few pages of freshman composition.

"What happened to your paper on the use of lab animals in cosmetics testing - the one you outlined for me?" Sam asked gently. "You had some very good ideas for that; it could've been a good position paper, like we discussed in class."

Jillie ducked her head and thrust her lower lip forward. The gesture would've looked more at home on a four-year-old than the twenty-four year-old single mother of two toddlers Sam knew her to be.

"I thought you'd like this better," she told him, fiddling uncomfortably with her pink-polished fingernails. "It's more serious. I thought you'd be impressed."

"Hearing your own ideas would impress me the most. The best papers come when you really care about your subject, Jillie. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not sure global warming is something near and dear to your heart."

Sam glanced meaningfully at her paper. Touching her shoulder, he added, "Environmentalism is a worthy subject, sure, but I don't think you had time to research this properly, and-"

Her eyes filled with tears. "You're just like Mr. Jeffries!" she accused, darting a narrow-eyed glance at Sam's office-mate. "He doesn't think I belong in college. Him and all those tests he does say I was meant to be a cosmetologist and that's what I ought to stay." Her gaze swung around to Sam again, her eyes red-rimmed and teary. "You're no better, are you? You two don't want people like me here at all."

Sam shook his head. Hell, he was 'people like Jillie,' a guy who'd spent high school screwing around and the years afterward getting into one scrape after another. He was twenty-three before he finally worked up the guts to walk into the college admissions office, and even then he'd half-expected to get laughed out of the place. He remembered what it was like to sweat over the placement tests, the first few papers, the exams.

Besides, he'd rather die than be lumped into the same tight-assed category as Malcolm Jeffries.

"Tell you what," Sam said thoughtfully, nodding toward his box of books and files. "My final grade sheet is still in there. I've got to drop it off by five o'clock, but I think I could see my way clear to writing in a C for your final grade-"

"Really?" Jillie asked, sniffling.

Sam nodded.

"Oh, professor-you don't know what this means to me!" She hugged herself, bobbing a little in a happy kind of jig.

"Hold on," he said sternly, one hand upraised. "There's a catch. I want you to rewrite your paper. You can redo global warming-and put some hard research into it this time-but it would be a shame to waste all the work you've already put into your cosmetics testing idea."

Jillie stopped jiggling. She glanced sideways, biting her lower lip pensively. "Oh, I guess you're right. Okay."

"I know I'm right." Shuffling through his files, Sam tore off a slip of paper and wrote his address on it. "You've got my phone number-call me if you get stuck. Otherwise-" he handed Jillie the paper "-you can drop off your paper to me no later than Friday. I'm leaving town after that."

She clutched the scrap of paper like a lifeline. "Thanks, thank you so much. You'll have it by Friday, I promise," she enthused, her smile widening as she turned to go. Sam picked up his box again, watching her. Halfway down the hall, Jillie paused and, with a wave, called, "You won't regret this, professor! Thanks!"

Sam wanted to believe she was right. Something warned him otherwise; some niggling doubt in the back of his mind told him he might regret his decision very much. Then he realized it wasn't intuition at all. It was the sight of Malcolm Jeffries' gloating face peering at him through his open office door.

"I'll have your butt in a sling for this, McKenzie," his office-mate said with a sneer. "I always knew you were a lousy teacher, and now I've got proof. You just wait. Your little arrangement with Jiggly is going to blow up in your face like your worst nightmare."

Sam glanced over at him, making a little tsk-tsk sound. "Gotta watch those mixed metaphors, Malcolm," he said, and then he was off to enjoy the summer.

~ ~ ~

Two days after the romantic dinner that wasn't, Holly's conviction that she and Brad belonged together hadn't wavered. This was despite a minor setback that occurred when she came home to find Brad sneaking out of the house, his arms laden with the cappuccino maker and both stereo speakers.

"Hey, those are mine!" She hurried up the front walk as fast as her two-inch heels and double burden of briefcase and gym bag would allow and met Brad just outside the front door.

"Huh?" He craned his neck sideways and peered at her through his glasses in that adorably owlish way he had. His eyes looked greener than ever, she noticed. Holly steeled her resolve. However appealing he might look, she wasn't about to let him demolish their stereo system, even for the short time they were going to be apart.

"Oh, it's just you, Holly," Brad said, looking surprised. "I, uh...didn't think you'd be home yet."

She tapped the top of the nearest speaker. Her new manicure-one of Clarissa's contributions to The Plan-gleamed richly in the sunlight. Brad hated sloppy-looking women. "These are mine, remember?"

"The stereo is yours, Holly. These speakers belong to me," he reminded her as he headed down the sidewalk toward his car. Holly dumped her briefcase and gym bag on the welcome mat and followed him.

"You blew your tinny little speakers the day after we moved in together, remember?" he added.

"Oh, yeah." Some passing spiteful impulse made her lean against the door of his red BMW while she watched him load up his things. He slammed the trunk shut, noticed she was still there, and yanked her away from the car. He even looked cute when he scowled. "Christ, Holly - I just waxed it."

I'll bet, she thought. "Ooops," she said aloud. The damn car got more stroking than she ever had, it occurred to her.

"What're you doing here, anyway?" he asked accusingly, glancing at his watch. "It's only. . .oh. You're right on time, I guess. I didn't realize it had gotten so late already."

Holly propped her hands on her hips, turning her body towards him in a friendly way so the neighbors wouldn't guess they were anything less than blissfully happy together. Temporarily. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, it's 6:30, isn't it?" Brad replied, rummaging around in his pants pocket and coming up with his car keys a few seconds later. Holly could tell from his expression this cryptic explanation was supposed to mean something to her, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out what. "So what?"

To his credit, he looked almost sorry to have brought up the whole subject. "So you're a little predictable, that's what. You leave work at 5:15 every weekday. Afterwards you go to the gym for an hour - if it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday - then home. They could set clocks by you, you're so unspontaneous."

"I am not!" Holly protested, but he was warming to his subject now, she could tell. He nodded his head at the neatly folded paper bag sticking out of her gym bag. "Your lunch, right?" She nodded. "I'll bet it was a turkey sandwich on wheat," he began.

"This is dumb."

"-with brown mustard, lettuce on the side," Brad recited. "Tomato juice to drink, with a bendy straw. And a green apple."

"It was a red apple," Holly shot back.

"I'm leaving." He opened the car door, slid inside, and revved the engine. She rapped on the window.

He pressed the button that rolled it down. "Let's not make this any harder than it has to be," Brad said. "I'm not trying to hurt you, you know. I just can't deal with all this right now. I told you-I need some space."

Was it just her, or was his regretful expression a little at odds with the way he kept revving the car's engine, as though impatient to be gone?

"Sure." Predictable, he'd said. Unspontaneous. "I understand." When she got done with her Plan, Brad wouldn't know what hit him. "I just wanted to tell you, I need your house keys back."

He grinned. Then he laughed. She felt like kicking him.

"What for?" he asked, twisting his key ring to release his set of house keys. He dropped them, warm from his fingers, into her palm. "You've found another roommate already?"

Predict this, Holly thought. "As a matter of fact, I have. And he's moving in this weekend. See ya'."

Nothing like a little competition to enliven the game, she told herself. Didn't every man want what he couldn't have? Tempting as it was, she didn't even linger to savor the sight of Brad's mouth hanging open in surprise. She couldn't-she had to get busy finding that new roommate.

~ ~ ~

"I told you, I'm not interested in having a roommate." Easing his pickup truck into the early-morning traffic that streamed into town, Sam McKenzie looked away from the road long enough to be sure his cousin Clarissa was listening to him. She wasn't. Oh, she was nodding her head, all right, but he'd known Clarissa since they were both four feet tall - long enough to realize that with her, a nod didn't necessarily indicate agreement. Sam sighed.

"I'm only in town for the summer, then I'm back to the city. I'm sure your friend Holly is terrific, but I'm not in the market for a roommate. I like to live alone."

Beside him across the wide bench seat, Clarissa snorted. "Is that why you're staying with your folks, because you like to be alone? You know I love you like a brother, Sam, but I've got to be honest, here. That's truly pathetic."

"Don't hold back," he said with a wry grin, "tell me what you really think." She hit him in the shoulder, a punch probably aimed at his upper arm but sent awry by the bouncing of his old truck. "Ouch! Does David know he's married to such a bruiser?"

"My husband doesn't give me any reason to punch him," Clarissa returned archly. "Unlike my knot-headed cousin. Besides, I barely touched you." She twisted in the seat, half-crushing the white bakery bag of donuts beside her. Sam snatched it out of the way and dropped the sack into a safer spot atop the dashboard.

He turned his attention to the road again, automatically scanning the streets and buildings around them. Everything looked the same as it ever did in Saguaro Vista, the same as it had since he was a kid steering a bike down Main Street instead of his pickup. The old adobe buildings looked a little more worn, and now there were strip malls sprouting up like weeds at the edges of town, but all in all it was nice to come back to. Comforting.

His mouthy cousin was anything but.

"Anyway, the only time you're alone is when you're between girlfriends," she was saying, sounding so primly sure of herself he couldn't stand it.

"I've never lived with any of them, either," he protested, but Clarissa overrode him, giving Sam a look that allowed no argument.

"I'm not asking you to marry Holly, for God's sake! She's got a boyfriend she's dead-set on already, though I can't imagine why."

Clarissa gazed out the passenger-side window, the very picture of nonchalance. Sam didn't buy her act for a minute. This roommate thing mattered a lot to her, or she wouldn't have been nagging him about it for the past two days.

"This boyfriend doesn't object to her having a male roommate?" Either the guy was very, very sure of himself - and her - or he was just plain stupid.

"Well, technically they're separated." She must have sensed him weakening, because Clarissa smiled and moved in for the kill. "Come on, do it as a favor to me, if nothing else. It wouldn't hurt you to think of somebody besides yourself for a change."

Sam jerked the truck to a stop in the mesquite-shaded parking lot of the Downtown Grill and glared at her. "Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Not in the least threatened, Clarissa snapped open her seat belt and pulled up the door handle. The door creaked open, scattering dust in its wake. "Look. I just want the people I care about to be happy, that's all," she said quietly. "If your answer's still no after you meet Holly, then I'll drop the whole thing, okay?"

Sam stared at her suspiciously. Maybe it was because she'd worn him down, maybe it was because he wanted to prove he wasn't the self-centered jerk she'd all-but accused him of being, maybe it was because he was starving and just wanted their conversation to end; whatever the reason, he nodded his head.

"Okay," he said finally, "I'll meet your damn friend."