“In a nutshell,” Savannah conceded, then considered what she had said. She was usually tight-lipped about her personal life, and family certainly fell into that category. But Jared Snow wasn’t like the people who usually passed through her life. He was different and somehow separate. If she let her fancy run free, she could imagine him an angel sent to ease the weight from her shoulders. In his presence she certainly did feel lighter, both of head and of heart.
It was all she could do not to sigh with pleasure. She could look at him forever, she decided, particularly when he did things like tilt his head just as he was doing now.
“You two must be very close,” he said. “I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a twin.”
It was easy to smile, less easy to concentrate on what he was saying. But she did it. “I have, too,” she confessed in a quiet voice. At his bemused look, she explained. “Susan and I are fraternal twins. We’re sisters who just happened to have been born on the same day. I’ve often wondered what it would have been like if we’d been identical, if we’d been able to do things like switch places at school or on dates. Susan and I can’t even switch clothes. We are different sizes.”
“She must be bigger than you.”
“How did you guess,” Savannah said dryly. Though she had never thought of herself as petite, others often did. She supposed it had something to do with her slimness. While her sister was slim, too, she was more curvaceous. “Susan is about five-eight. She has a fantastic figure. And great eyes. Andsuperhair. She has dad’s height and mom’s looks. She should have been a model.”
“Why wasn’t she one?”
“Because someone told her that modeling was hard work, and where we grew up, hard work wasn’t highly prized.”
“You do it.”
“I’m the odd one. The black sheep.”
“And your dad isn’t proud of what you’ve become?”
“Not quite.”
He gnawed on the inside of his cheek for a minute, then asked, “How about Susan? Is she proud of what you do?”
Savannah didn’t answer as quickly. For one thing, the answer wasn’t cut-and-dried. For another, she was distracted by Jared’s mouth. His lips were as lean as the rest of him, as uncompromisingly male, and when they slanted into a grin, or gentled, they were all the more enticing.
With an effort, she answered. “I suppose she’s proud. One part of her, at least. Another part, I think, is a little resentful.”
“Resentful?”
“Of my success. By contrast, it makes her feel more lost, and dad,” she threw a glance skyward, “bless his soul, compares us constantly. I don’t measure up to Susan, Susan doesn’t measure up to me, neither of us measures up to him, or to what our mother was—it goes on and on.” Abruptly she stopped talking, then bit her lower lip, then said in chagrin, “I think I’m the one who’s going on and on.”
“I don’t mind,” Jared said.
But Savannah was embarrassed. He had come on business and she didn’t normally waste time. But he distracted her. Something about the way he looked at her invited confession. He looked at her as though he was intrigued, as though there was nothing on earth that could have interested him more than what she was saying, as though he truly needed to hear her words. There was an intensity to him despite his relaxed attitude.
In recent years she had dated plenty of men, but not many more than once or twice, and for good reason. Strong, interesting men, men who were leaders in their fields appealed to her. Unfortunately, most had also turned out to be eminently interested in themselves, which was fine for a date or two, but boring for longer than that.
Jared Snow seemed every bit as strong and interesting, every bit as skilled in his field. Yet he was more interested in hearing about her than talking about himself. The risk, she realized, was in eventually boring him as she had always eventually been bored. So, sitting straighter in her chair, she put both hands on her desk and eyed him with an expectant, down-to-business kind of look.
But the effort was lost on him. He was glancing around her office. “This is cozy.”
She hesitated, then yielded. A minute’s more distraction wouldn’t hurt. “Yes. It’s cozy.” She usually called it small. “It serves the purpose, though.”
“It must be convenient being in the courthouse.”
“Very.”
He looked past her to a tall bookcase filled with thick, official-looking tomes. “Are those all yours?”
She glanced at the books. “Most of them. A few belong to the law library.”
He looked at the etchings on the wall, a series of five courtroom scenes that she’d picked up in Paris two summers before. “And those?”
“They’re mine.”
“They look authentic.”
