As the others smiled with fond indulgence at Clay, Spring gave him a cool smile and fibbed that it was nice to meet him, deciding to ignore his question about nicknames. She pulled a little harder at her hand, noting that his hold was anything but light. Definitely a tennis grip, she decided, hoping he couldn't feel her rapid pulse in her fingers.
"Would you like to go outside with me?" Clay offered in a low, suggestive voice. "I could show you the pool."
"I think I'll wait until later, thank you," Spring answered, wishing again that she was back in Little Rock. Who was this guy, anyway? Her eyes turned toward Summer, pleading for help.
"Later is fine," Clay said cheerfully. "Just let me know when you're ready."
"Clay, stop manhandling my sister and behave yourself," Summer scolded, interceding with a light laugh. She reached to firmly pull Spring's hand out of Clay's grasp. "Ignore him, Spring. The rest of us do."
It sounded like good advice, but Spring had a feeling that Clay McEntire was going to be hard to ignore. He was still standing so close to her that she could almost feel the heat radiating from his very nice body. She tried hard to convince herself that he was not igniting an answering flame in her.
Then she was introduced to Joel, who turned out to be Connie's fiancé, and she was relieved when he seemed perfectly normal. Thank goodness he wasn't another screwball like Clay!
"It's very nice to meet you, Spring," Joel greeted her in his pleasantly soft voice. "Everyone was disappointed when you couldn't come to California with the rest of your family for the wedding."
"Not half as disappointed as I was," Spring answered truthfully. Summer and Derek had graciously offered to postpone the wedding when Spring had become ill, but she had refused to allow it. She had no intention of ever letting anyone know that she'd cried herself to sleep on the night of the wedding, lying in her Little Rock apartment, lonely, feverish and ill.
Summer giggled. "I'm sorry," she told her sister, no regret evident in her voice. "I shouldn't laugh at you for being sick—but chicken pox! At your age!"
Spring sighed in resignation. She had expected this. "I knew you found the whole thing hysterically funny— that I missed catching chicken pox in school when you and Autumn had them, then caught them from one of my patients at the age of twenty-six. I'm sure you were sorry that I couldn't come to your wedding, but don't tell me you didn't have a laugh at my expense."
"We all know that your sister has a rather warped sense of humor," Derek murmured straight-faced, his eyes gleaming at his adored wife.
"Definitely warped," Spring agreed in amusement. She had liked her brother-in-law from the moment she'd met him at the airport. She knew now that she was going to love him like the big brother she'd always wanted.
"So, Summer, what's for dinner?" Connie asked brightly.
Summer looked at Connie with a teasingly lifted eyebrow. "Funny, I don't remember asking you to dinner."
"Oh, let her and Joel stay, Summer," Clay urged. "There's always room for two more."
"I didn't invite you, either," she returned without hesitation.
"Three more, then," he amended with his best toothpaste-ad smile. "You wouldn't deny us the opportunity to get to know your beautiful sister, would you?"
Deny him, deny him, Spring silently begged.
Summer looked straight into her sister's eyes, quite obviously read her thoughts and laughed. "Okay, you can stay," she told Clay, winking impudently at Spring. "It'll give Spring something to write in her diary."
Clay slipped an arm around Spring's stiff shoulders. "I'm very good at providing diary material," he murmured into her ear.
"I'm sure you are," Spring replied, adroitly sidestepping his loose embrace. "But I prefer to fill my diary with nonfiction."
With one of his rare grins creasing his lean cheeks Derek punched Clay lightly on the shoulder. "You may have just met your match, my man."
Clay smiled at Spring in a way that melted her lower vertebrae. "You know, Derek, you just might be right," he answered.
* * *
"Oh, Spring, it's so good to see you." Summer hugged her sister hard, then returned to the lettuce she was shredding for a salad. "It seems like so long since we've been together."
Neatly slicing a plump tomato, Spring smiled somewhat sadly, thinking of how little time she was able to spend with her sisters now that they were all grown and could really enjoy being together. "It has been a long time. I've missed you."
"Me, too. Of course, the telephone company loves me."
Spring laughed. "We should both own stock by now. Every month I pay for calls to you in California, to Autumn in Florida and to Mom and Dad in Rose Bud. The phone bill's almost as high as my rent."
"Derek's never complained about ours, but he always takes a deep breath before he opens the envelope."