Alex put a hand to his ear. "Hark! I believe I begin to hear an echo."
Maggie pushed at his hand. "You said here, Alex. You said you had to evolve here, with me, in this world. You never said you had to evolve in your—our—books. I should have seen that for myself, you know, just as a writer, I should have seen that. There may be people out there who don't mind reading the same book over and over again, but I give my readers more credit than that. Saint Just has to evolve."
"I'm so grateful we've had this discussion of what you've already decided," Alex said, his grin wicked. "So Lady Prestwick is to be introduced as my love interest in our next book? Blond, buxomy? Seems workable."
Maggie looked at him levelly. "Kiki the Kudzu Queen is not going to be your love interest, so just forget it. Not happening, trust me."
"And we wave a fond farewell to our Realtor. May I suggest an alternative?"
"You can't have Angelina Jolie, either," Maggie said mulishly.
"So classically beautiful. A pity," Alex said, sighing. "I do, however, have someone else in mind, as you have this habit of borrowing attributes from famous persons, movie actors."
"You mean a conglomeration, the way I did with you?"
"Or just one actor, molded slightly to fit your requirements. I would suggest a woman not precisely classically beautiful, but rather unique. One with the ability to appear regal, haughty, and yet also more than willing to, shall we say, roll with the punches if it became necessary. Flutter a fan, wave a pistol, glide through the waltz, tackle an escaping miscreant and wrestle him to the concrete floor of a parking garage without any thought to her own safety, leap without hesitation into dark, cold flood waters—"
"There aren't any parking garages in Regency England, Alex. And leaping into a flood—me? You're talking about me? Putting me into our books? Who are you comparing to me, for crying out loud? I don't look anything like a movie star. I mean, that's the sort of thing you notice, right?"
"In your case? Apparently not, no. So, my vote, and I do believe I should have at least equal say in the matter, would be for our new heroine physically to resemble ... of course you may not agree ... and, as both Saint Just and Alex, perhaps I should have two-thirds of the—"
Maggie pushed at his chest with both hands. "Out with it!"
Alex grinned, even as he rubbed at his abused chest. "Ashley Judd."
"Who?" Maggie closed her eyes, tried to picture the actor. "She was in Double Jeopardy, right? That one with Tommy Lee Jones? She's—" Maggie slammed her lips shut over the words skinnier than me. What woman in her right mind—and Maggie liked to think she was still at least semi-sane—would admit to anything like that? "You think we look alike? You think I look like Ashley Judd? Really?"
"You object?"
"Object? Hell, no!" Then Maggie mentally slapped herself back to reality. "So you want Saint Just's love interest to look like me—like Ashley Judd? I don't know, Alex. That's bringing this whole thing really close to home. I write fiction, not memoirs. It's kind of spooky. I'll have to think about this. Maybe next month. For now, turn your back, Alex. And I mean it!"
Maggie jabbed him in the side, hard, with her elbow as she pushed herself forward, left the bed. Balanced on her walker, her pajamas slung over the top rail of the thing, she clomp-clomped her way to the bathroom.
Once she'd maneuvered the walker and herself inside the small space and the door was closed behind her, Maggie let her shoulders slump. As exits go, that one couldn't have been very graceful. Ashley Judd couldn't have looked graceful hopping naked to a bathroom.
And Angelina Jolie couldn't have fared much better, so there.
But Alex was a gentleman. He wouldn't have looked. She could count on him for that.
She could count on him for a lot of things. And she did.
That she now seemed to be counting on him to make her life complete was more than a little frightening.
She thought she might know where the problem lay. She hadn't been mad at him, exasperated with him, for a while now. Probably too long. It was easier, keeping her emotional distance, when she was mad at him.
But now that they were lovers? Kind of hard to get mad at a guy who wasn't just the perfect hero, but also the perfect lover.
And he actually thought she maybe looked a little like Ashley Judd? Ahhh, that was so sweet of him.
Maggie shook her head, shook off the flattery. Refused to look at herself in the mirror, hunt for traces of the movie star. Promised herself she was going to stop acting like ... like such a girl.
Maybe what she needed right now was a good fight, to help keep her perspective.
"Okay," she said as she reentered the bedroom a few minutes later, having finally inched her pajama bottoms up and over her cast, "let's talk about something else."
"An excellent suggestion," Alex said, motioning her to one of the chairs near the sliding glass doors to a small, iced-over balcony. "Feel free to select a subject."
He'd dressed, not in pajamas—because perfect heroes know pajamas are unnecessary for them—and looked his usual fabulous self in black slacks and a black cashmere pullover sweater.
Comparing her blue pajamas with the white sheep on them—the baggy legs were the only ones that fit over the cast—to his sartorial perfection was enough to get her just a little bit mad at him. But he didn't seem to mind at all when she looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge, backward, so how could she get mad at him about that?
She needed something else. And then she remembered ...
"Let's talk about Socks, why don't we? Socks, and pies, and soul food."
Saint Just slipped the black grosgrain ribbon of his quizzing glass over his head and lifted a length of it, allowing the quizzing glass to swing lazily back and forth at midchest level.
A sure sign that he wasn't feeling quite as composed as he'd like her to believe. She knew the signs. She'd given him the habit, hadn't she?
"Socks was on duty when you visited the metropolis? And how is our mutual friend?"
"He's okay. I won't tell you about my visit to my condo, because I'm trying to forget it, but Socks is fine. And he'll get his foot out of his mouth soon, I'm sure of it."
"I was going to tell you myself in time, Maggie. Discuss the idea with you, that is."
"You were? After you decided, you were going to tell me. How very Regency-chauvinistic of you, Alex."
"It was only an idle conversation, Maggie, an exchange of ideas one late evening over coffee and cakes at Mario's. Socks and Jay don't have the wherewithal actually to set up such an establishment. Indeed, the entire thing was much more in the realm of fiction. You know, sweetings, as you deal in fiction. It was a conversation of what if."
"Uh-huh," Maggie said, tempted to squeeze the bicycle horn, give him a nonverbal opinion on the happy horse poop he was shoveling at her. "So let's play what if, shall we? What if Socks really wants to do this? What if he needs money to do this. Get ready, because here comes the biggie. And what if Maggie wins three-point-something-million dollars in A.C.?"
"Oh, dear, this is unfortunate," Alex said, dropping the length of ribbon. "He applied to you for a loan?"