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  “Tysons Corner,” he said quickly. “One of the best in the country. And I need to buy gifts, too, so I’ll go with you.”

  “No!” Karen blurted, then tried to recover herself. “I mean, I concentrate better when I’m by myself.” Even as she said it, she knew it was a lie. Christmas shopping alone became a chore.

  “And how will you know who to buy for? Even how many kids are here? I assume you want to buy for the kids.”

  “Write down all the names for me and I’ll get everything.” She did not want to spend the day with this man—and it was getting very difficult to keep her eyes off the muscles of his chest.

  “I don’t have a pencil,” he said, smiling. “Everything is in my head.”

  Karen almost smiled back at him. “You can dictate them to me. Besides, wouldn’t you rather stay here and play football with the other guys?”

  “I am a fat, out-of-shape desk jockey and they’d cream me.”

  At that Karen did laugh, for there was no one who was less out of shape than he was.

  Without waiting for her to say yes, he grabbed a terrycloth robe from the closet, put it on, then kissed her cheek. “Pick me out some clothes, would you? I have to make some calls. I’ll be back for you in thirty minutes.”

  Before Karen could protest, he was out of the room, the door closed behind him. Of course, she thought, feminists everywhere would shudder at the notion of her choosing the clothing of an autocratic, arrogant, presumptuous man like Mac Taggert. But by the time she’d completed this thought, she had draped a pair of dark wool trousers, an Italian shirt, and a heavenly English sweater across the bed. Shaking her head in disgust at herself, she went into the bathroom.

  An hour later, after a quick breakfast, she and Mac were walking to the rental car, and on the lawn were the bridegroom and other men playing ball. Steve shouted to Mac, asking him to come play with them.

  “She’s forcing me to go shopping with her,” he yelled back.

  “Ha!” Karen called to them over the roof of the car. “Like I need a man to go shopping with me, right? Truth is, he’s afraid to stay here because you might hurt him.”

  Ignoring the laughter of the men, Mac shouted, “What do you want us to get you for a wedding gift?”

  “From you, Taggert?” Steve called. “A Lamborghini. But from her, I’ll take anything she offers.”

  “I’ll second that,” one of the other men called, then they all laughed in a very complimentary way.

  Feeling quite flattered, Karen smiled brilliantly at all the young men playing touch football and she smiled even more brightly when she saw that Mac was frowning. “What a very nice group of people,” she said as she got into the car.

  Mac, his body twisted as he looked out the back window while he drove the car out in reverse, maneuvering it around the many other vehicles in the drive, didn’t answer her.

  Maybe it was because of the men’s flirting with her and Mac’s resultant silence, but by the time they arrived at the beautiful Tysons Corner mall, Karen was in very good spirits.

  “Where do we begin?” she asked as soon as they’d entered the center of the mall near Hecht’s. Looking up at him, she saw that male shrug that meant that she was in charge. “Elephant time,” she muttered.

  “I beg your pardon,” he said stiffly.

  “It’s what I used to say when I was with my husband and we went shopping together. He’d refuse to participate in deciding what to buy anyone, but he’d carry anything I handed him. I called him my elephant.”

  For a moment Mac seemed to consider this, then he solemnly lifted his right arm, clenched his fist, and made his biceps bulge through his sweater. “I can carry anything you can pack onto me.”

  Karen laughed. “We shall see about that. By the way, if, as you said, ‘we’ are giving gifts, who’s paying for these things?”

  “Me?” he said with a mock sigh, as though he’d always paid for everything she’d ever bought.

  “Perfect,” she said over her shoulder as she took a right and headed for Nordstrom’s. “Your money, my taste.”

  “Just give me a peanut now and then and I’ll be fine,” he said from behind her.

  Three hours later, Karen was exhausted but exhilarated. She’d completely forgotten what it was like to shop with a man. He never wanted to take the time to consider which of any two purchases was better. “This one,” he’d say, or, “What does it matter?” And when it came to gift suggestions, he could rarely think past the music store. Twice she had him sit on benches, surrounded by shopping bags, while she went into stores and purchased sets of soaps and lotions, and some fruit and cheese baskets. She almost couldn’t get him out of the Rand McNally shop, where he purchased a huge 3-D puzzle of the Empire State Building. And they visited all nine toy stores and made purchases from each one, so many purchases in fact that Karen suspected that they’d bought more toys than there were children.

  “Does lunch come with this trip?” he asked after they’d visited the very last toy store the mall had to offer.

  “Are you sure you want to eat? I think there was a toy car still left in that last store. Maybe you should go back and get it.”

  “Food, woman!” he growled, leading the way to the Nordstrom’s cafe, where they placed their orders, then took their drinks and found a seat where Mac could put all the bags, for he wouldn’t allow Karen to carry anything.

  “You’re a good elephant,” she said as soon as they were seated, smiling at him.

  After they were situated, he looked at her. “What plans have you made for Lawson’s Department Store?”

  Karen was in too good a mood to lie. “You don’t have to patronize me. And you don’t have to listen to my childish ideas. For all that this has been great fun today, you and I both know that as soon as we get back to Denver, it will end. You’re the boss and I’m just a typist.”

  “Just a typist, are you?” he said, one eyebrow raised as he reached down the neck of his sweater to his shirt pocket and pulled out several folded fax sheets. “You, your husband, and Stanley Thompson owned Thompson’s Hardware Store for six years. You and your husband were everything to the store. Stanley Thompson was deadweight.”

  As Karen looked at him in astonishment, he continued.

  “After you two were married, Ray worked two jobs, while you typed manuscripts at home. You two saved every penny you had and bought a half share in Thompson’s Hardware and you turned the place around. Ray knew about machines; you knew everything else. You wrote ads that made people come to the store and you handled the money, telling Ray how much you could and could not afford. It was your idea to add the little garden center and bring in women customers, and that was the most profitable part of the store. After Ray died you found out that the only way Thompson had originally been willing to sell to him was on the condition that on Ray’s death he could buy you out for fifty grand.”

  “It was fair at the time the deal was made,” Karen said defensively, as though he were saying that Ray had made a bad contract.

  “Yes, at the time of purchase, half a share was only worth thirty thousand, but by the time he’d died, you and Ray had built up the business so a half share was worth a great deal more than fifty grand.”

  “I could have stayed as a full partner,” Karen said softly.

  “If you shared Stanley Thompson’s bed.”

  “You do snoop, don’t you?”

  “Just curious,” he said, eyes twinkling at her as their food was set before them. After the waitress left, he said, “You want to tell me about your ideas for this store for mothers?”

  “I haven’t really thought about it, just some vague ideas,” she said, playing with the straw in her glass of iced tea.

  At that Mac gave a little snort of laughter and pushed a pen and a napkin toward her. “If you had unlimited money and owned Lawson’s Department Store, what would you do with it?”

  Karen hesitated but not for long. Truth was, she had thought about this for quite