Afternoon Delight - By Mia Zachary Page 0,18

no need to call out the Marines.”

He didn’t share her joke. “Just because I’m out of the Corps doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my combat training. Where is he taking you?”

His mother just smiled wider and unlocked her car. “I love you, tough guy. I’m going to Palio d’Asti, okay?”

“Hunh. Somebody wants to make a good impression.”

She looked at him then, her gaze suddenly as serious as her tone. “Yes, I really think he does. People change, sweetheart. Remember that.”

The new Jeanna London gave him a quick hug before sliding into the driver’s seat. Chris stood in the driveway and watched her pull away, a frown tugging at his mouth. A band of tension reminded him he was holding his breath again and needed to lighten up.

As he walked back to his Dodge Dakota pickup truck, he reflected on the irony of the situation. His love life sucked. Here it was Friday night and the successful dating service owner was going home alone while his mom had a date.

SLOWLY FLIPPING the pages of her Life List, Rei reviewed some of the dreams, goals and aspirations she’d written over the past months.

Visit New York City during the holidays

Drink wine in an olive grove in Tuscany

See the Aurora Borealis

Drive a Mazerati

Swim with the dolphins

Try either hang gliding or skydiving

Snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef

Rei closed the book and flopped back against the bed pillows. Before she’d been diagnosed last year, career ambitions and fear of failure had kept her in a uncomfortable space, leaving her wary of stepping outside of her chosen box. Once the disease had gone into remission, though, she’d planned to embark on all kinds of great adventures.

But somehow, over too short a period of time, she’d slipped back into a similar box—this one just included a different job and more interesting fruit. Now, it was very possible that she was getting sick again and this time it could be terminal. Honestly, she didn’t want to know. Not yet.

Avoidance was a cowardly way to deal with the likelihood, but would a few days or even a week really make that much difference?

They might, if she put the time to good use. She vowed to adopt singer Tim McGraw’s lyrics about living like she was dying as her personal anthem. She would likely have to face another round of treatment soon enough. Before then, though, she wanted to cross as many things off her List as she could.

She now realized that she had followed the letter of the support group assignment, but not the spirit. Did goals have any real meaning if you never took steps toward achieving them?

She needed to stop daydreaming about out of the ordinary adventures—there was no way she could take off from work to hike the Grand Canyon or go whale watching in Alaska right now. Instead she would take the kind of small personal chances that added richness and depth to each day. Trying new varieties of fruit might not be life altering, but it had been fulfilling.

And then, whenever she could, she’d let go of her fears and excuses in order to take some bigger risks, like she had at the club last night. Seducing a stranger had actually been a pretty big item on her List. But had she really fulfilled her objective? She definitely didn’t feel fulfilled.

She got up from the bed, suddenly too restless to sit still, too aware of the mattress beneath her. Tossing the Life List on the comforter, she went to the window. She rested her forehead against the glass, looking over at the lights from the streets downtown. The cold against her temple did nothing to alleviate the heat coursing through her.

It was crazy to want a man so much, to imagine having sex with a virtual stranger. Crazy because, for all she knew, Chris was out there right now seducing some other woman in some other nightclub. It was stupid to think the sparks she’d felt had been mutual, that last night had been anything special. She’d better write the experience off as a once-in-a-lifetime fantasy partially accomplished and forget about him.

Except that forgetting him proved impossible.

Each time she closed her eyes, she experienced again the heat of his touch and the drugging taste of his kiss. She remembered how he’d made her feel, how quickly he’d taken her over the edge. She wanted to feel that way again without the barrier of clothing between them. She imagined having hot, primal, sweaty, earth-shakingly satisfying sex….

If she