“Cat, did you hear me? The phone’s ringing!”

  Cat finally shook off the warm, lethargic lust and looked at Dinah, who’d obviously been trying to get her attention. Then she turned to the phone, spying the number on the caller ID.

  Laine. Calling for her expected “don’t screw this up” chat. Cat was in no mood to hear it. Dammit, if her sister was so sure she was going to louse things up, why had she run out on her when Cat had needed her the most? As far as Cat was concerned, Laine had waived all rights to any say in what happened the minute she’d walked out the door without a second thought for the loss of their family’s heritage.

  She yanked the receiver to her ear. “Temptation.”

  “Cat?”

  “Lainey?” she replied through clenched teeth, knowing the nickname drove her sister nuts.

  “Have you called the auction house yet? We need to get some cash for the furniture to pay off the liquor supplier.”

  Gee, nothing like a little small talk to get the conversation rolling. She couldn’t help replying, “Hi, sister dear, how are you? How was your day? I’m sure it’s so difficult dealing with everything all on your own since I left you there without a thought at all for anybody but myself.”

  “Please don’t start, Cat,” Laine replied. “You’ll be fine. Just follow my list.”

  Her list. The stupid list. The one that might as well have started with, “Cat, you’re useless, so here, I’ll save you yet again by telling you every single thing to do.”

  “What list?” Cat said, wondering if the pounding in her head was caused by the music or by the stress of always playing this role in the Sheehan family. God, sometimes she got so bloody tired of being either the screwup or the bitch.

  “The one I taped to the bar that explained step-by-step what you needed to do this week.” Laine’s impatient sigh was nearly inaudible. Nearly.

  Cat rubbed at the corners of her eyes, wondering why it was so hard to tell her sister how she felt. To open up and change the boundaries of their relationship. Laine was warm and smart and wonderful. She would listen, of course she would.

  But deep in her heart, Cat knew the truth. Laine might listen. But she wouldn’t hear. So she responded in Catlike fashion, in words Laine would understand. And expect. “Oh, I wondered what that was. Some guy spilled whiskey all over it Friday night. I threw it away.”

  A pregnant pause followed and Cat almost regretted the lie. Nobody had spilled whiskey on Laine’s damn list. Cat had balled it up and thrown it in the trash the day her sister had left. If everybody else felt free to leave her alone to deal with closing down Temptation, then she was gonna do it her way.

  “I’ll e-mail you another copy. And call the auction house first thing tomorrow.”

  She shook her head. Same old Laine, who’d never believe Cat had called the auction house Thursday. She’d been to the bank. She’d ordered enough stock to get them through the month. She’d contacted movers. She’d called for an application for college, deciding maybe it wasn’t so crazy to think she could get a degree and pursue her secret dream of becoming a high school teacher.

  Few people knew that dream, which was exactly the way Cat liked it. She didn’t want to be laughed at, which, she figured, was exactly the reaction she’d get from most people.

  After all, she was nothing like her sister. Laine had been the valedictorian of her senior class.

  Cat had been the Girl Most Likely To Meet Hugh Hefner.

  “Cat, did you hear me? What have you been doing since I left?”

  Oh, nothing much. She’d just handled everything at the bar, looked in the want ads for a job and the apartment guide for a place to live. All on her little lonesome. Imagine that. She’d even had something approaching a sexual interlude with the most attractive man she’d ever known. None of which she could tell her sister. “I’m busy,” she finally said, too tired to continue these dramatic family games.

  “Please, Cat. We have to get moving on these things.”

  As if Laine cared. There was no we in Temptation anymore. There was only Cat. “Yeah, sure, we do.”

  Oh, Lord, her voice had broken a bit on the word we. She missed her sister. Missed Tess. Missed Gracie, who’d been so distracted all weekend. How, when she was surrounded by so many people, could she still feel so lonely?

  She’d never felt more so, not until now, this moment, when she thought—truly thought—about everything she had to do in the coming weeks. Selling her memories piece by piece. Saying goodbye to things that had been so precious to her. Packing up every part of her life and trying to figure out where to go from here.

  Alone. Entirely alone.

  Then she raised her eyes and looked at the stage. From across the expanse of the room, Spence met her stare. A frown tugged at his brow, and he tilted his head to the side, silently asking her if she was okay. And suddenly, though he’d been a stranger to her two days before, Cat again began to acknowledge those unusual feelings she’d had since the moment they’d met.

  That as long as Spence was around, she was never going to feel alone again.

  BY THE END of the final set Sunday night, Dylan had begun to realize he had a problem. A big one. There was a real flaw with his plan to convince Cat to change her mind about letting something happen between them: after tonight, he wouldn’t have any legitimate reason to see her again.

  Well, no reason he could tell her. In truth, he had dozens of reasons—like the whole suspecting-he-needed-to-see-her-face-in-order-to-want-to-keep-breathing bit—but that seemed a bit much. Particularly since she still assumed him to be a stranger, which was the other sticky point. He hadn’t come clean with her yet…hadn’t even told her his full name. He debated on whether to just walk up to the bar during a break, start flirting, and challenge her to remember where they’d met before.

  She’d be interested at first, her eyes would sparkle as he dared her to guess, taunting her about their shared past. Then, when she finally figured it out—or when he finally told her—that merry sparkle would fade, to be replaced by the friendly-but-uninterested look she’d always bestowed on him in the old days.

  You jackass, you’re nothing like you were in the old days.

  And he wasn’t, certainly not in appearance, and definitely not in attitude or self-confidence. But the same old sensible, introspective brainiac lurked beneath his rocker surface. And he wasn’t sure Cat would like that guy, much less want him to put his hand where Dylan’s had been the night before.

  He closed his eyes and threw his head back, relishing the memory as he backed up Josh’s version of a Stones classic. The feel of her drenching his fingers, the taste of her mouth, the coos she’d made as she came, the rich smell of her warm body.

  He was getting turned on all over again just remembering it.

  “Whoa,” someone called.

  He glanced over and saw Banks, watching him. “You got some.”

  Dylan shot him a withering glare.

  “Or you’re thinking about getting some,” Banks said, his yell barely audible over the sound of the music.

  But somebody obviously heard him, because a few of the women at a table closest to the stage began to whoop and holler. “I’ll give you something, baby,” one of them screamed.

  And she did. Her shirt. With a suddenness that caught him completely off guard, the woman whipped off her top and flung it toward the stage. It came flying at him and landed on his head.

  Dylan shook it off, catching it in his hands. Then, because the lights were damn hot and he was damn mad at both the woman and Banks, he used the T-shirt to wipe the sweat off his face and neck. Throwing it into a corner, he kept right on playing.

  The women in the crowd went nuts. “Take mine,” one yelled.

  “Hell,” he murmured, watching as several inebriated-looking females stood on their chairs or beside their tables and reached for their waistbands or their buttons.

  But before another shirt went flying, a blond figure erupted into his field of vision. Cat leapt up onto the stage, pointing out at the audience. Dylan and his bandmates instinctively brought the music down a notch in volume. “Next woman who removes one piece of her clothes gets thrown out,” she yelled. “And possibly arrested.”

  A few groans greeted Cat’s announcement, but she ignored them. She did, however, cast one withering glance at Dylan, her expression fierce and her green eyes snapping with anger.

  Jumping back down, she beelined toward the bar, never even looking back. Which was good. Because that meant she didn’t see the cocky grin Dylan couldn’t keep from his face.

  That hadn’t been a concerned business owner trying to keep things from getting out of hand in her establishment. That had been a jealous woman who’d been lying through her teeth when she’d claimed she didn’t want to be involved with him.

  And suddenly, though he still wasn’t sure how he was going to make sure he got to stick around, he began to feel better.

  When they ended the song—which had been their fifth encore—Banks immediately rose from his keyboard, signaling the definite end of the show to the crowd. He practically danced his way across the stage, his amusement visible in his smile. “You got her, man. She is yours. I thought she was going to go after the brunette who threw the shirt and snatch her bald.”

  Dylan lowered his guitar. “Shut up, Banks. Don’t think I’ll forget you caused that incident. And you’re as full of it about her as you are about everything else.”

  Banks, impossible to insult as always, almost bounced on his toes. “Talk about avenging goddess. She must have a total case. I think she threw a beer at someone to get over here before any more women started stripping in your general direction.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Dylan muttered as he turned toward the back of the stage and reached for a bottle of water. He drew deeply from it, needing the fluid on his dry vocal cords. After draining what was left inside, he crumpled the plastic bottle in his hand and two-pointed it into an empty box in the corner. “She says she’s too busy shutting this place down to get involved with anyone, so there’s no point in even trying. After tonight, I have no more excuses to see her.”

  Josh and Jeremy walked over, having extricated themselves from the fans who’d crowded around the foot of the stage. Jeremy grabbed Dylan’s shoulder. “Man, what did you do to piss off the bartender? She looked like she was gonna rip you a new one.”

  Josh shook his head, grinning at his brother’s naiveté. “Obviously our friend Spence here has been making a little extra time with the Cat woman. It’s like a live version of Revenge of the Nerds.”

  Dylan glared at Banks, who had the grace to avert his stare in guilt, the loudmouth.

  Jeremy’s eyes jaw dropped. “You and the blonde? Man, I’ve been staring at her for three days, waiting to make my move.”

  Dylan’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t even think about it.”

  The kid put his hands up, palms out. “No sweat, I’m backing off. She probably wouldn’t have been interested anyway. She carded me and knows how old I am.”

  Josh punched his brother in the shoulder. “You tried to buy beer? Dammit, bro, that was part of the deal with us letting you replace Charlie. That you’d play by the rules. All of them.”

  “Busted,” Banks muttered as Jeremy stammered to explain.

  God, had he ever been as young as Jeremy? At nineteen, Dylan had been a senior in college. And now, six years later, he felt positively ancient compared to the young drummer. Maybe because his parents and teachers had been treating him like an adult since the age when most kids were just hitting puberty.

  By unspoken agreement, the four of them began packing up their gear as the crowd drifted out of the bar, though a few women did try to stick around to offer phone numbers to anyone who would take them. Cat would have none of that. She practically shooed the stragglers out with her broom, reminding any complainers of the town ordinance against bars staying open past midnight on Sunday.

  “One of these days, we’re gonna be successful enough to have roadies to do this crap,” Jeremy said as he went through the routine of disassembling his drum set.

  Dylan doubted it, mainly because he had no interest in going further. But maybe Jeremy would. The kid was more serious about his music than the rest of them ever had been.

  The Four G’s had been formed in college, when he and Banks had hooked up with Josh and their former drummer, Charlie Moss. They’d had a lot in common—all young college freshmen, Dylan being the youngest. They’d all been studious and smart, they’d all been rock fanatics. Most of all, they’d all been geeks.

  Hence their name. The Four G’s.

  Jeremy still didn’t know the full story behind the name. He’d once said he figured it had something to do with their last names, Josh being a Garrity and all. That Banks, Spencer and Moss didn’t start with a G hadn’t seemed to occur to him. And they hadn’t enlightened the teen—because Jeremy probably would have taken offense at the label.

  “Well, until those glorious roadie days, every man gets to handle his own instrument,” Banks said to no one in particular. Then he snickered, amused by his own off-color wit.

  Dylan kept his attention on his work, not daring to look in Cat’s direction while she wiped down tables with the two waitresses. And he definitely didn’t try to talk to her—not while Banks and the other guys were here. The last thing he wanted was one of them stepping in to try to “help” him by telling Cat tonight’s incident was nothing to get upset about.

  With his luck, they’d make some comment about the girl who’d leapt on him after a performance at a fair in Tremont last month. Or the one who stowed away in his car last winter. Not to mention the one he’d almost had to get a restraining order against. Those incidents were almost enough to make him rethink this whole band thing and just stay quietly in his house, doing the independent software consulting work that was his day job.

  Lost in his own thoughts, he hardly even noticed that Banks had disappeared. Casting a quick glance around, he saw his friend at the bar, chatting up the young waitress. And Cat.

  “I’ll kill him.” Hopping off the stage, he strode over to join them. If Banks had told Cat the truth about Dylan’s identity, he wasn’t going to be responsible for his own actions.

  “Hey, man, I was just telling Miss Sheehan how much we appreciate the gig,” Banks said, sounding way too innocent for the prank-playing fiend Dylan knew him to be.

  “We do appreciate it,” Dylan murmured.

  “You guys were great,” the dark-haired waitress said. Then she peered more closely at Dylan. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

  “Spence is famous,” Banks said, stepping between them. “Women are always tossing their clothes at him.”

  Dead friend walking. That was Billy Banks.

  Banks looked at Cat and gave her one of those boyish innocent looks that had fooled so many of his competitors back on the political debate team. “It’s not his fault, Miss Sheehan. I made a comment that got that woman riled up earlier. Not Dylan.”

  Cat’s gave him a triumphant look. “Dylan, huh?”

  She knew his name. Dylan’s fingers clenched into fists at his sides as he waited, watching for a spark of recognition, a hint of curiosity, or understanding. Instead, she pursed her lip and asked, “First or last?”

  “Huh?”

  “Which is your first name and which is your last?”

  “Dylan’s my first name,” he said through a tight jaw and an unexpected thickness in his throat.

  Still nothing. No widening of the eyes, no puzzlement on her brow. Certainly no Aha! His name meant absolutely nothing to her. Which shouldn’t have ticked him off. But it did.

  “Seriously,” Banks said, still playing some kind of weird matchmaking game, “it wasn’t his fault. It was mine.”

  Cat’s shrug was a bit too casual. “Not a problem. I just didn’t want it to go any further. I plan for Temptation to finish out her run in style. Not with a raid.”

  “So you’re really closing?” Banks asked.

  Cat nodded, her jaw tightening. “We have two more weeks. Then it’s sayonara.”

  Dylan watched for the pain and sure enough, it flashed in her eyes. Cat was no closer to accepting the reality of this loss now than she had been Friday night. In fact, she looked even more bereft. More tired, world-weary. His flash of anger that he’d been so utterly forgettable dissipated, replaced by a strange ache he couldn’t contain.

  He didn’t like to see her hurting. Didn’t like to think of her alone in this place, watching it being torn apart piece by piece as she wondered where she’d go and what she’d do. He’d really like to know where the hell her family was, because he had some things he’d like to say to them about dumping the responsibility for this mess right onto her slim shoulders.

  “Speaking of sayonara, I’m outta here,” Vicki said, grabbing her purse and shoving a handful of cash from her apron pocket into it. “Thanks for the work—great tips tonight!”

  “Thank you,” Cat replied. “We couldn’t have managed without you and I really do appreciate it.”

  Dinah echoed her. “You’re a lifesaver, hon. Come on, me ’n’ Zeke’ll walk you to your car.”

  The women disappeared into the kitchen to leave through the rear exit. Once they were gone, Banks sat at one of the stools at the bar and stared at Cat. “Well,” he said, “I hope you continue to have a lot of help. Looks like there’s stuff to be done around here. You could get some real money for some of those antique signs, the mugs, the posters and the old-fashioned jukebox. Not to mention the light fixtures—is that handblown glass?”

  Cat glanced around in disinterest. “Yeah.” Then she ran a weary hand through her long hair, her fingertips rubbing lightly on her temple, as if easing away an ache. “It’s going to be a long couple of weeks with tons to do.” Shaking her head, she muttered something under her breath. Something that sounded like “Thanks again, Laine.”

  “Well, if you need any help, Spence is very handy to have around. And he could use the work. Playing in a bar band doesn’t exactly bring home the bacon.” Banks managed to keep a straight face as he held a palm up to keep Dylan from interrupting. “Hey, bud, I know you’re embarrassed, but everybody’s been down on their luck. It’s just too bad you can’t live in your car this time since you unloaded it for that crotch rocket.”