Adam announced, turning to face her family.

Then he swept Annabelle into his arms. He felt her gasp against his parted lips and decided he’d better keep the kiss reasonably chaste. The contact lasted only a few seconds, but for one charged moment, the room and the people in it - seemed to fade away, their exclamations of surprise sounding like a roll of very distant thunder.

Gaze locked with hers, he tried to convey the message Trust me, but to tell the truth, he was starting to feel a little disoriented himself.

Annabelle stared at him with fists bunched by her sides. Stunned could not describe how she felt Confused, breathless, furious and eager didn’t cut it, either. For one suspended moment as he kissed her, she had almost believed his announcement was real.

Engaged to Adam Garrett.

Just the idea of it caused her body to tingle in curious places.

Dear Reader,

This July, Silhouette Romance cordially invites you to a month of marriage stories, based upon your favorite themes. There’s no need to RSVP; just pick up a book, start reading…and be swept away by romance.

The month kicks off with our Fabulous Fathers title, And Baby Makes Six, by talented author Pamela Dalton. Two single parents marry for convenience’ sake, only to be surprised to learn they’re expecting a baby of their own!

In Natalie Patrick’s Three Kids and a Cowboy, a woman agrees to stay married to her husband just until he adopts three adorable orphans, but soon finds herself longing to make the arrangement permanent. And the romance continues when a beautiful wedding consultant asks her sexy neighbor to pose as her fiancé in Just Say I Do by RITA Award-winning author Lauryn Chandler.

The reasons for weddings keep coming, with a warmly humorous story of amnesia in Vivian Leiber’s The Bewildered Wife; a new take on the runaway bride theme in Have Honeymoon, Need Husband by Robin Wells; and a green card wedding from debut author Elizabeth Harbison in A Groom for Maggie.

Here’s to your reading enjoymentl

Melissa Senate

Senior Editor

Silhouette Romance

Please address questions and book requests to:

Silhouette Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In loving memory of Vicki Triplett Lee, a woman of grace, intelligence and courage. Thank you for giving the world Judy, who is a woman like you and a wonderful friend to walk through life with.

Originally from California, Lauryn now lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest, where she can look out her window and see deer walking down the street. She holds a B.A. in Drama and when not writing, she enjoys spending time with her family and fiancé, going for long hikes with her dogs and finding new ways to cheat at Crazy Eights.

Lauryn is the recipient of the 1995 Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best Traditional Romance.

Annabelle Simmons fixed an attentive smile on her face and commanded her eyes not to cross.

If headaches were dollar bills, she decided, I would be rolling in dough.

As the owner of Wedding Belles, Elegant Weddings for the Romance of a Lifetime, Annabelle knew that headaches were simply part of her job description. Far from rolling in dough, she was closeted in her office, gritting her teeth against the rhythmic pounding of her temples as Celeste Costello detailed the most recent in a seemingly endless series of last-minute ideas for her daughter’s May wedding.

“I’m thinking doves,” Mrs. Costello enthused. “One hundred snow-white doves released at the exact moment Maria and Rosario kiss.” She fluttered her hands toward the ceiling, an approximation, Annabelle supposed, of the effect she was after.

“Real doves.” The older woman pointed a redtipped finger in warning. “Don’t give me pigeons and try to pass them off as doves.” She sat back in her chair, holding her purse tightly against her ample stomach. “And money is no object.”

Mrs. Costello ended every request with “And money is no object.” Annabelle waited politely for her customary follow-up.

“You could do it for what?” Mrs. C. tapped acrylic nails on the Lucite clasp of her purse. “One, maybe two hundred dollars?”

Annabelle swallowed a sigh.

Generally, she was able to handle customer demands with grace and equanimity. After six years of coordinating weddings, she was used to requests ranging from the simple to the downright outrageous. She gave each bride’s needs her time, attention and very best efforts. She worked at challenging logistics with the tenacity of a dog chasing a flea.

Doves, she knew, were not impossible—just absurdly impractical in the formal traditional church ceremony Mrs. Costello and her daughter had planned. Father DiAngelo would be forced to dodge bird droppings while he blessed the happy couple.

Annabelle didn’t mind explaining the difficulties one hundred flapping birds would create, but Mrs. Costello was unlikely to stop at doves. Yesterday she’d called to discuss the possibility of a pumpkinshaped carriage pulled by six horses, and the day before that, a skywriter to scrawl, “We Love You, Maria and Rosario,” across an early May sky that would likely be too overcast to see the plane, much less the message.

To further complicate matters, Maria had requested a “simple” wedding, and Mrs. Costello might say that money was no object, but she didn’t mean it.

Annabelle’s headache expanded from her temples to the top of her head.

I’m losing my sense of humor, she thought. A few months ago, Mrs. Costello and her horses and planes and canapés shaped like Maria’s profile would have seemed cute. Unfortunately, Mrs. Costello wasn’t Annabelle’s only problem at the moment.

“I think doves are a lovely idea,” she began care-fully, folding her hands on the lap of her peach linen skirt. “They’re romantic and very dramatic.”

Mrs. Costello beamed and nodded as much as she could over the folds of her heavy chin.

“But it’s just not practical to include them at this point.”

The smile slipped from the other woman’s face, and Annabelle hastened to explain her reasoning.

“The plans for Maria and Rosario’s wedding are already so lovely. And the wedding is less than five weeks away. At this point, it’s really much wiser to set the ideas we’ve already discussed and to concentrate on executing them to the very best of our abilities.”

Mrs. Costello digested this advice. “No doves.” She pursed her lips when Annabelle shook her head. “Tell me, for your wedding, aren’t you going to have anything fancy? A little something extra?”

Annabelle froze. She had mentioned her wedding to Mrs. Costello and her daughter more than four months ago, back in the days when there was actually going to be a wedding. Steven had called a halt to the proceedings two weeks ago today. The “some-thing extra” at this point would be the groom.

Taking a conspicuous glance at her watch, Annabelle gasped loudly. “Oh, dear. The time…I had no idea…I have an appointment with the baker.” She rose, straightened her skirt and reached for the matching peach jacket she’d draped over the back of her chair. “We’re going to discuss your idea of shaping the top tier of the cake to resemble the Vatican.”

Mrs. Costello. smiled broadly as she remembered this bit of inspiration and hastened to rise, also. “Good, good. You tell me what the baker says. I’ll be home all afternoon. My cousin Sophia and I are working on the wedding favors. We’re thinking of using live oysters, so the guests can find their own pearls.”

Oh, dear God. Weakly, Annabelle put a hand to her aching temple. “Have you discussed this with Maria?”

Before Mrs. Costello could justify such a potentially aromatic idea, the door to Annabelle’s office burst open.

The Wedding Belles office was located on the first floor of the large Victorian house Annabelle shared with her sister, Lianne. Working at home had many advantages, but privacy—particularly with a gregarious seventeen-year-old in the house—was not one of them.

Lia stood in the doorway, full of the fire and drama only a teenager could project within the first five seconds of entering a room.

“Have you seen this?” she asked theatrically, holding up an issue of Collier Bay News and Views, the local throwaway paper that came out every Friday.

“Lia,” Annabelle admonished, her eyes darting meaningfully to Mrs. Costello, “I have a client…”

Lia looked at the silver-haired woman.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Costello. Did you tell Annabelle my idea about the oysters?” Without missing a beat, she shook the paper at her sister and demanded again, “Have you seen this?”

Mrs. Costello craned her fleshy neck to get a glimpse at the newsprint. “Is that the ‘Ask Effie’ column? Is there anything in there about my Maria?”

Each week Collier Bay’s resident society maven— the ubiquitous Effie—chronicled the local doings in a column for her loyal readers. She was especially fond of weddings and frequently highlighted one of Annabelle’s clients. Mrs. Costello had been waiting with bated breath for Effie to focus on Maria.

“No.” Lia shook her head broadly, and Annabelle had to marvel at her sister’s gift for ominous fore-shadowing. “There isn’t anything about Maria. It’s all about Annabelle.”

“Annabelle?”

“Me?”

“Yes.” Lia nodded. “And it amazes me after everything we’ve been through that I would be the last to know!”

“What are you talking about?” Annabelle took a nervous step forward. “What’s in the paper?”

Normally, Annabelle clipped the “Ask Effie” column and posted it on her bulletin board Friday evening. She hadn’t gotten around to it last night. “What does it say?”

Lia handed the newspaper over with a slight frown. “You haven’t seen it?” She watched Annabelle unfold the crackly pages. “I thought you’d seen it and you just weren’t telling me.”

Annabelle scanned the large print. “What are you talking about? Telling you wha—” Her eyes widened and her jaw fell, then clamped shut again. “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

“What? What is it?” Never one to bow to discretion, Mrs. Costello huddled next to Annabelle and peered around her shoulder. “What does Effie say? Is there any news about—Oh, my Go-od.” Her painted lips pursed. She pressed a hand to her chubby cheek.

Silently, Lia and Mrs. Costello waited while Annabelle scanned the awful story:

After a nearly yearlong engagement, local wedding coordinator Annabelle Simmons and city councilman Steven J. Stephens have called it quits barely two months before D day. If you Ask Effie, this turn of events is a blow to Collier Bay, which would have been host to one of the loveliest weddings of the year had the councilman and Ms. Simmons tied the knot. Already local florists are calling this a major financial setback. But not to worry. Councilman Stephens has been seen squiring a striking new lady. A romantic dinner, a stroll along the boardwalk… Perhaps wedding bells will ring by year’s end, after all. Just don’t look for the lovely Ms. Simmons to coordinate the wedding!

The silence that followed was pregnant until Lia offered weakly, “I thought you saw it already.”

Mrs. Costello clucked her tongue. She patted Annabelle’s arm. “Listen, darling, about the cake…So what if the top tier looks like a cake and not the Vatican? The Pope, God bless him, gets enough publicity. Better you shouldn’t get too worked up.”

She shook her head and edged to the door, practically vibrating with the need to share the awful news—with everyone she could find. “When I think of what you’re going through…” She put a hand to her head. “And with the whole world watching yet! It’s a wonder you can plan what to eat for breakfast, much less someone else’s wed—” She stopped herself, pressing her lips together, miming locking them and tossing away the key. “No. I won’t even say the word. Not today. Today we’ll pretend the whole world is single.”

With a fervent “God Bless You,” she opened the door and bustled out.

Annabelle stared at the paper until her vision grew blurry. Two weeks ago Steven had told her he feared they were mismatched and already he’d been seen with a “striking new lady.”

“I’m sorry, Belle.”

Remembering abruptly that Lia was watching her, Annabelle looked up from the paper. Her sister’s pretty face was awash with pity and guilt; she looked miserable. Taking a deep breath, Annabelle tried to muster a smile. The corners of her mouth trembled.

“Steven and I broke up…a while ago.”

“A while ago?” Lia took a moment to digest this information. “Then you were keeping it from me?”

“No, I just didn’t tell you right away, because I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Didn’t want to upset me? Do you think I’m that shallow?” Lia flapped a hand in frustration. “I want to be there for you, like you’ve always been there for me. You’re going through this horrible, painful, awful time, and you can’t even confide in your sister?”

“Lia—”

“I’ve failed you!” Tears sprang to her eyes.

“Lia, please, you’re exaggerating this whole situation. It is not that awful. Steven and I were… mismatched.”

Lianne shook her head, disgusted to the core. “That’s ridiculous. You can stand there and act brave if you want to, Annabelle. I know you’re crumbling inside.”

“I am not crumbling!”

“She doesn’t look like she’s crumbling.” The smooth baritone that interupted into the girls’ conversation was richly ironic. Annabelle’s attention snapped to its source, but Lia spoke first.

“Adam!”

Just inside the French doors that led to the patio, Adam Garrett stood like a tawny-haired Mel Gibson, tall and lean, with a wicked smile that looked as if he’d just heard a blue joke.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Lia rushed to his side. “When did you get home?”

“Last night. Good to see you, scruff.” He ruffled her hair, the only person who could still treat Lia like a twelve-year-old and get away with it. “I missed you.”

Unconsciously tightening her grip on “Ask Effie,” Annabelle watched her sister and her neighbor, one thin and fair, the other tall and imposing and more deeply tanned from the time he spent at sea than anyone else she knew in Oregon. As always when she saw Adam after he’d returned from one of his adventures, she felt a strange combination of conflicting emotions: exhilaration, resentment, curiosity and relief.

His career as a marine videographer kept him moving all over the world, and his latest expedition had kept him away for five months.

“Hello, Belle.” He met her gaze with eyes as green as the trees dividing their two properties. “How are you?”

Her heart hammered in a way it should not have, not from a question so banal. “Fine,” she said, striving for nonchalance. “Welcome home.”

“Thank you.”

“Where were you this time?” Lia asked, keeping her arms around his lean waist, evincing none of the awkwardness Annabelle felt, but then, Lia’s relationship with Adam had never been as complex as her sister’s.

“New Zealand,” Adam responded, and Lia gasped in awe.

“Wow. What’d you bring me?”

“Lia!” Annabelle admonished, but Adam merely laughed.

“Not so fast,” he said, glancing at Annabelle with a raised brow. “Mind if I sit?”

He moved to the chair, and for the first time Annabelle noticed that his right foot was encased by an ungainly rubber shoelike contraption with straps that buckled up the front of his leg from ankle to knee.

“What happened?” Lia exclaimed, noticing, too, and following him to the chair. “Did you break it?”

“One bone.” He shrugged, wagging his head with good humor over the indignity of such an injury. “Not even enough for a good cast.”

“Can you still dive?”

“Not if I want it to heal.”

“How did you do it?” Lia breathed, ready to be impressed. “Were you stung by a man o’ war? Chased by a shark that didn’t want to be photo-graphed?”

Adam grinned. “I slipped while I was swabbing the deck.”

Lia’s expression was so crestfallen he laughed out loud. “I’m a wharf rat for the time being, ladies. Will you take pity on me?” He cocked a brow, addressing the question to both the women, but keeping his eyes on Annabelle.

“Sure.” Lia plopped her jean-clad tush on the edge of Annabelle’s desk, answering for them both. “How?”

Adam pretended to consider the possibilities. “You could have dinner with me one night this week.”

Quickly, Annabelle turned to fiddle with some papers on her desk. She wanted to say yes—immediately. The intensity of the urge no longer surprised her—wanting to say yes to Adam had long been a habit with her, a bad one. She ducked her head, unwilling to let him read the response on her face.

He could charm the leaves from the trees; it had always been that way. Fortunately for her, she no longer gave in to impulses that were better off checked.

In high school Adam had wooed the very teachers who ought to have suspended him for some of the pranks he’d pulled: riding his motorcycle into the morning assembly and offering a ride to the principal—for a dollar; turning the senior lunch area into “Senior Bay,” carting in sand and flooding the center with a garden hose. He’d been Collier Bay’s answer to James Dean in Rebel without a Cause.

For a hopelessly level-headed girl like Annabelle, who for her freshman class project had taught her homeroom how to organize a day planner, Adam’s bold impetuosity had been irresistible.

“I warn you,” Adam said now, “I intend to take no prisoners. If you’re sticking to salad and diet soda, you can forget it. I’m in the mood for the biggest cheesiest Italian meal we can find.”

Lia offered a mock groan. “If you insist, but just this once.” Italian food was her all-time favorite.

“Which evening is good for you?”

Annabelle glanced around in time to see a hint of satisfaction in Adam’s chiseled features. He knew that without Lia she would find a reason to say no.

Sliding off the desk, Lia shrugged. “I’m free. You and Belle can decide.” She shot her sister an uncomfortable look, a silent reference to the argument they’d been having before Adam walked in. “She’s in charge,” the girl mumbled as she crossed to the door leading into the main part of the house. “I’m going for the mail.”

She closed the door behind her and, paradoxically, the room seemed smaller after she left.

“Good to see you, Belle. It’s been a while.” Adam’s voice flowed like Southern Comfort, mellow and rich.

The air between them crackled.

“A few months.” Annabelle shrugged, forcing a breezy smile. “You’ve been gone longer than that before.”

“True.” Relaxing back in the chair, Adam folded his arms and regarded her through lazy, half-closed eyes. “But you were avoiding me for at least two months this time before I left.”

“No, I wasn’t!” Telling the lie made her face feel hot. “Not intentionally. I was very busy. There’s a lot of work to do around here.”

“Mmm. What were you and Lia arguing about when I came in?”

The Collier Bay News And Views seemed to ignite in Annabelle’s hand. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “We weren’t.”

Mutinously, she clamped her lips together. Adam walked in and out of their lives and thought he could pick up again wherever they left off. But for Annabelle, his comings and goings made her feel like an earthquake survivor who was too dumb or too reckless to move away from the epicenter.

He would find out soon enough about Steven, either from Lia or from the paper, but he wouldn’t hear it from her. She kept her troubles to herself. She could handle her life just fine; she was merely experiencing a temporary setback.

“All right,” Adam said, his gaze at once lazy and challenging, “if there’s nothing wrong between you and Lia, then tell me, what’s the matter with your desk?”

“What?” The strange question had her gaze bouncing from Adam to the big mahogany secretary. “What’s wrong with it?”

“There’s something on it.” Relaxing in the well-upholstered chair, he waved a hand, indicating the paperwork lined in precise piles along the outer edge of the desk. “I’ve never seen anything on your desk except lemon oil.” One golden-brown brow, a match for his hair, arched in an ironic compliment. “Annabelle Simmons you’re practically cluttered.”

Ooh, she hated it when he did that—noticed every-thing around him like a hawk! It made her feel like a plucked chicken, naked and goose-pimply. Annabelle’s gaze skittered to the stacks of paper, neatly aligned and organized, and she felt a rush of anxiety, like a whirlpool inside her.

For years, Adam had teased her about her penchant for neatness, but she liked order; it provided comfort in an otherwise chaotic world.

Unfortunately, this time no amount of organization could buffer reality. Unpaid bills, invoices with out-standing balances—the truth stared her in the face: her business was in the red.

For five years she’d struggled to support herself and her sister following their parents’ death in an auto accident. Now the stability she had worked so hard to reestablish was slipping away like rain through her fingers.

But she would get it back. She had to.

With her own wedding on the horizon Annabelle had accepted too few assignments this entire last year; she’d been too preoccupied helping Steven plan parties and benefits in his bid for city councilman.

Annabelle rubbed her throbbing temples. If she didn’t know better, she would say her headache was pounding to the beat of “The Wedding March.”

“What’s wrong, Belle?”

Lowering her hand to her lap, she smiled blandly at Adam. “Nothing. Everything’s fine.”

And it would be. All she needed were a couple of more aspirin to chase the two she’d taken this morning and an hour alone to come up with a game plan. She and Lia would have to tighten their purses, but other than that, they would be fine. Everything would be fine.

Flushing under Adam’s sharp gaze, Annabelle decided it was time to take an Excedrin break. She was about to make her excuses when the office door opened again, and Lia burst in, looking dazed and flushed.

“What’s the matter?” Annabelle’s heart began its maternal worrywart thump. “Honey, are you all right?”

Lia nodded. She held up two sheets of paper, stapled in the corner, the opened envelope in her free hand. “I got it,” she said, her tone weak and amazed.

“What?” Annabelle said. “Got what?”

“From Juilliard.” She swallowed hard, blinked and looked at her sister. “My acceptance.” She waved the paper. “It’s a letter of acceptance. I got in!”

With a smile that bloomed like the first rose of spring, Lia threw back her head and yippee’d with pure joy. “The best, the most respected, the most wonderful school of fine arts in this country and they want me! I can’t believe it!”

His injury forgotten, Adam rose from his chair, grabbing Lia around the waist and raising his hand for a smacking high five.

Juilliard.

Suddenly Annabelle’s legs felt like columns of Jell-O. She took two wobbly steps away from the desk.

Dear heaven, how could she have forgotten? Several months ago Lia had applied to the private, prestigious, expensive college, on the other side of the continent, a budding young pianist’s dream come true…

Good Lord, Juilliard!

Lia’s excitement and Adam’s congratulations were loud and rousing, but not nearly as loud as the twenty-one-gun salute that went off inside Annabelle’s head. Her breath started coming in short staccato bursts.

Four years at Juilliard would mean an open door to Lia’s future. Four years at the college meant four years of intense study, four years of books, of tuition and housing and cab fare and—

Aaaaagh!

“Belle?”

Annabelle heard her name and saw Adam step to-ward her, but everything seemed fuzzy, as if she were looking through a veil. Suddenly she felt very very dizzy; dozens of tiny white lights seemed to pop and sparkle around her head. She extended a hand, groping for the desk to steady herself.

A staticky seashell sound filled her ears. Through it, she heard Lianne’s voice and then Adam’s again. “Annabelle!”

The last thing she remembered was trying to smile and offer Lia her congratulations.

What came out was an odd little twist of her lips, so that she looked like a baby with gas, and a badly mumbled sentence that sounded like “I can handle it.” Then Annabelle slipped quietly, peacefully to the floor.

She was floating…

What a wonderful sensation, Annabelle thought as she hovered pleasantly between a dead faint and wakefulness. She hadn’t felt this warm or peaceful in ages.

She became aware of strong arms lifting her, arms that tightened when she stirred, and felt herself being carried, then lowered onto something comfortable but firm and real. A large cool hand came to rest on her forehead.

Now that was a feeling she remembered from a long time ago—a broad caressing hand. Mmm, it made her sorry she’d cut her hair. She had the most stirring recollection of tender curious fingers weaving through the long strands. She sighed as the memory grew clearer—a face, a smile, a hand reaching out—

Her eyes opened with a snap. She stared straight up.

Adam leaned over her as she lay on the sofa, his body so close she could feel the heat.

Like a jack-in-the-box, she bolted upright. Her forehead made solid thwacking contact with the bridge of his nose.

“Son of a bitch!”

“Ow!” Annabelle bounced back against the cushions.

Hovering anxiously behind Adam, Lia gasped.

Raising a hand to his injured nose, Adam turned to the younger girl. “I think she’s coming to.”

“Oh, Annabelle! Are you all right?” Lia rushed to her sister’s side. “What happened?”

The fear in Lia’s voice made Annabelle struggle to sit up. She wobbled, then fell back on her elbows with a grunt. Adam reached for her immediately. Without thought, without any conscious decision at all, she scrunched back into the cushions. The sharp retreat came as automatically as blinking.

Swearing just loudly enough for her to hear it, Adam shoved his hands beneath her armpits, foisting his help on her whether she wanted it or not. When he pulled her to a sitting position, the room started to spin, and she swayed. Adam’s grip tightened.

“Hang in there,” he said, holding her steady.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled, “fine…”

“Lianne, hand me that pillow.” Tucking a small cushion carefully behind Annabelle’s back, he settled her against the arm of the sofa, then turned to the younger woman. Sensitive to the fear that was turning the girl ashen, Adam spoke gently. “Lianne, can you go into the kitchen and make your sister a cup of tea?”

Lia stood uncertainly, biting her lip and staring at the big sister who rarely had a cold, much less a fainting spell. Adam reached out and gave the girl’s forearm a gentle squeeze.

“She’ll be all right,” he reassured her. Knowing Lia would be calmer if she was occupied, he urged, “How about that tea? And something to eat.”

Lia nodded so hard her ponytail bobbed. She ran out of the room, and Adam turned back to the thin too-pale woman lying on the divan. An expletive rose to his lips. Dark smudges shadowed the area beneath Annabelle’s blue eyes. From the moment he’d walked in this morning, he had seen how tired and over-worked she appeared.

Delicate and fair, she had always given the appearance of needing someone to look after her, an impression dispelled immediately once you got to know her and realized it was Annabelle who took care of everyone else.

Even as a teenager, she had managed her parents’ house, balancing the family checkbook, clipping coupons for groceries. Her parents had been wonderful people, but they’d been artists and their left brains hadn’t been quite as fully developed as their right. Adam had loved their relaxed easygoing natures, so different from that of his own mother and father. Jack and Lilah Simmons valued individuality and the joy of living in the moment. They had taught their children to value themselves and they had taught him, too. But he could see now, with the benefit of hindsight, that their carefree attitudes had frightened their older daughter.

Adam looked at Annabelle and felt a sharp stab of guilt. He’d stayed away too long.

Her eyes were closed, and he wondered whether she was fully alert. He sat on the sofa next to her very carefully, hip to hip, and she jerked. Yeah, she was alert, all right.

Scanning her body, his sharp gaze paused where her skirt bagged across her concave tummy. “Have you had anything to eat today?”

Her eyes flickered open. “A couple of aspirin,” she whispered weakly.

He had to resist the urge to shake some sense into her. “Aspirin is not part of the food pyramid, Annabelle.”

Irritation filled him. When she’d slid to the floor like she was melting, his heart had skipped more beats than it would ever make up.

A fussy priggish Annabelle he could tolerate.

A self-righteous Annabelle he could tease.

A sick Annabelle scared the daylights out of him.

Taking her wrist between his fingers, he counted her pulse. Fast, he determined, but steady.

Absently, he rubbed her hands to warm them. She still had the smallest hands of any woman he’d ever known.

Belle had changed in the past few years. For as long as he lived, he would never understand how she’d tied herself to a bonehead like Steven J. Stephens. The man was a pompous anal-retentive bore and, apparently, a bastard to boot.

Adam had wanted to find the man and rearrange his nose until it was as skewed as Stephens’s politics when he saw the Collier Bay News last night and that picture of Stephens with a woman who looked like a Barbie doll. Granted, Annabelle Simmons’s love life was none of his business, but worrying about her was an old habit, and old habits were the hardest to break.

Pressing her hand between his palms, Adam waited for her skin to grow warm.

Flustered by the feel of his palms enveloping her much smaller hand, Annabelle let her eyes remain closed, although she was wide awake now.

When she’d come to in her parlor and realized it was Adam’s hand on her brow, she’d felt something close to panic. Even semiconscious, she had recognized the traitorous heat that flowed through her limbs.

His touch was a time machine, whisking her back to the days when taking his hand had been easy and frequent.

Come walk with me, Annabelle. The leaves are turning. And he would hold out his hand.

I miss my mom. It would have been her birthday yesterday. And she’d reach for his hand.

She’d rushed home from college the minute she’d received news of her parents’ death, and Adam had been waiting for her. Lianne was home with a baby-sitter the evening of the car accident. When Annabelle arrived at the house past midnight, the sitter was gone, Lianne was in bed, and Adam was in the parlor.

He sat on the settee, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, staring into the fire, so deep in thought he hadn’t heard her enter the house.

The only sound in the room was the steady tick, tick of the grandfather clock against the wall. Adam rose the moment he saw her, and the surprising thing—the only part of the evening she remembered clearly at all—was that he’d been crying. His eyes were as red-rimmed as hers.

He stayed with her that night, and he was there in the morning when she and Lia woke up. There hadn’t been a moment after that, not a single one, that he hadn’t been there if she needed him. He seemed to know just how to tease her out of a blue mood and when to simply listen while she poured her heart out. He had made the strange bottomless aloneness seem less awful.

Now, lying on the sofa with her eyes closed, pretending to be insensible when in fact every sense she possessed was zinging with life, Annabelle felt a wave of bittersweet emotion well inside her. After all these years, her first impulse when she had a problem was still to lean on Adam’s shoulder and cry until she felt better.

The very thought made her heart flutter in panic. Looking back, she knew she had leaned on him too much for too long, but when you lost people you loved earlier than you should have, it changed things. It altered the way you looked at life, the way you hung on to people. And the way you let go.

“The water’s heating for tea.” Lianne rushed back into the room. “I made a tuna sandwich. We had some left over. Do you think Belle could be allergic to something, Adam? Like mercury in tuna? A girl in my biology class passed out because she ate MSG. Well, ate MSG and dissected a frog, but—”

Rising to take the tray Lia carried, Adam set it on the coffee table. “Tuna’s fine. It looks great.”

With an effort Annabelle lowered her feet to the floor and pushed herself all the way up. Immediately, Lia rushed to the couch.

“Oh, Belle, are you okay? You scared me so bad when you fainted.”

“I’m fine.” Annabelle squeezed Lia’s hand. “I got dizzy for a second, that’s all. I’m sorry I scared you, baby.” Lovingly, she reached up to smooth Lia’s bangs away from her face. “I’m so proud of you,” she whispered, her eyes misty. “Getting into Juilliard! I think I got a little overexcited, that’s all. But after I rest a bit, I’m going to start planning the biggest party this town’s ever seen.”

The sisters sat side by side on the sofa, bonded by a closeness defined in part by the struggles they had shared.

When the grandfather clock announced noon, Annabelle placed a kiss on the top of Lia’s head. “Hey—” she bumped Lia’s shoulder with her own “—don’t you have a yearbook meeting today?”

Lia glanced at the clock. “I’m not going to go.”

“What? Of course you are. You’re the senior editor.”

“I’m not going to leave you.” Lia shook her head. “Not while you’re sick.”

“I’m not sick.”

“I’ll take care of her.”

Adam and Annabelle spoke together. Lia looked from one to the other.

Stepping forward, Adam laid a hand on Lianne’s shoulder. “Go on,” he urged. “I think Annabelle will feel better if she knows you’re at your meeting.”

Lia frowned uncertainly. “You’re going to stay with her?”

Before Annabelle had a chance to protest that she didn’t require a baby-sitter, Adam nodded. “I’ll be right here.”

“Well…” Lia vacillated, chewing a thumbnail. “If I wasn’t the senior editor, I wouldn’t even think about it. Oh, Belle, are you sure you’re going to be okay? Maybe you should go to the emergency room. You should have a CAT scan.”

“I don’t need a CAT scan.”

“I think I should stay. I could—”

“Go!” Again Adam and Annabelle responded at the same time.

Firmly, Adam pulled Lia to her feet. “She’ll be all right. Go to your meeting and tell your friends the good news. And save a couple of hours for me later in the week. We’ll have dinner at The Beach House.” He named the area’s poshest establishment. “The country’s next great concert pianist should dine where she can see and be seen.” He winked.

Lianne smiled tremulously. She glanced once more to her sister. “You’ll be okay with Adam, huh, Bellie?”

Annabelle nodded.

Turning to the neighbor who had been like a big brother for as long as she could remember, Lianne instructed, “Make sure she eats the whole sandwich. She didn’t have any dinner last night.”

Eyeing Annabelle with a frown, Adam nodded. “Count on it.”

Reassured for the time being, Lianne hugged her sister, gave Adam a peck on the cheek and exited the room. A moment later they heard the front door open and close, and silence thickened the atmosphere in the small Victorian-dressed parlor.

Annabelle’s heart thumped with foolish nerves as Adam crossed to her, seating himself on the sofa and reaching for the plate Lia fixed. He held up one-half of the tuna sandwich. “You eat. I talk.”

She hesitated, and his gaze sharpened. “I will take you to the emergency room if I think there’s some-thing more than hunger and fatigue going on here.”

“Lia worries too much,” she grumbled, but she took the sandwich.

“Then why give her more reason to?”

Prepared to protest heatedly that everything she did was for Lia, Annabelle opened her mouth. Adam tipped her hand, sending the sandwich home.

“Eat.”

Once she was chewing, he stood and left the room, returning a few minutes later with a cup of hot tea. He took his place on the sofa again, and the tuna turned to dust in Annabelle’s mouth as she felt Adam study her. She forced herself to keep eating, but was acutely aware of his attention as it fastened on her loose blouse, her too-roomy skirt, then moved back up to her face.

He said nothing, but from the corner of her eye, she saw his expression tighten and turn grim. He didn’t like what he saw.

She knew she had lost weight recently, too much weight, but the stress of the past couple of weeks had been almost unbearable and food hadn’t gone down easily. She had come through so much in her life— the premature death of her parents, leaving college to care for her sister, starting a business in the home her family had left her, possessing at the time more hope than experience.

She’d made it through all that, still standing, still going strong. But this past couple of weeks…

Lowering the sandwich, Annabelle felt her last vestige of energy drain as if she were a keg and someone had pulled out the stopper. She felt tired. Tired and defeated, and so alone it scared her.

The first touch of Adam’s fingers smoothing a lock of hair behind her ear made her heart thunder and shake. Her skin felt like glass, as if at any moment she could shatter from the simple contact of his hand.

She couldn’t look at him, didn’t dare; she didn’t need to look to know his brows would be lowered intently, that the green green eyes would be filled with care. That was one thing, among all the doubts, she never had to question: Adam cared.

After her parents’ death, there had been times late at night when Lia was in bed that the silence in the house had been crazy-making. Adam had been there, glad to talk into the night or sit in utter silence, depending on the mood Annabelle was in. She had needed that. Lord, how she had needed exactly that— a friend whose devotion was unconditional.

Now for the second time in her life she felt like a house in the middle of an earthquake, the very foundation that supported her cracked and shifting, and Adam was here again.

He would offer friendship, and she would try to resist. Because he wouldn’t stay.

Like a dieter who knew from experience that one bite of chocolate would decimate her will entirely, Annabelle would resist Adam’s friendship because one bite was never enough. It might take a day, a week or a month, but he would leave, and she would have to learn all over again how to get through a day without him.

“What’s going on, Belle? You’re edgy. You’re tense. You don’t eat.” Adam’s quietly spoken concern was the opening salvo to get behind her defenses.

“I eat.”

“Aspirin,” he said dismissively. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing’s the matter. I’ve been very—”

“Busy. Yeah, I know.” He shook his head, impatient with her evasiveness. When he spoke again, however, his voice was gentle, even empathetic, and that made his words harder to take. “I know about Stephens.”

That was it; he said nothing else. Simply, I know…

Well, Annabelle thought, that’s swell. She hated loose ends, and now she wouldn’t have to worry about any. Her humiliation was complete.

She could try the line about her and Steven being mismatched, but why bother? In truth, that was Steven’s excuse, not hers. As far as Annabelle was concerned, she and Steven had been perfectly, almost scientifically well matched. She wouldn’t have gotten engaged, otherwise.

Annabelle had purchased a book entitled, Mate for Life, according to which she and Steven were eighty percent likely to reach their silver anniversary. Those were the kind of odds Annabelle liked.

It was so much more humiliating to be dumped by a man who was supposed to be perfect for you.

“You want to talk?”

Placing the remainder of her sandwich on the plate, Annabelle wiped her fingers. “No.”

Adam nodded. “Mind if I ask you a question, then?”

“I really don’t want to talk about—”

“Have you ever considered that your welfare matters to me? Contrary to what you apparently believe, I can’t turn friendship on and off like a spigot. Not like you can.”

“What? Me?”

“That’s right.” She turned to gape at him and he took full advantage of her attention. “We made a onenight mistake, Annabelle. One night, six years ago. That doesn’t have to spoil the entire friendship. Not if you don’t want it to.”

Spoil the friendship! As if it were a sack of oranges and that “one night” he referred to nothing more than a contagious mold.

Annabelle felt like she could no longer breathe. Emotions whirled and tangled and knotted inside her.

“I cared about your parents,” Adam continued. “They worried about you. Have you ever considered I might need to make sure you’re okay for their sake?”

Had she ever considered…? Of course she had! Six years ago she had forced herself to consider the possibility that his affection for her parents might be the only reason he needed to make sure she was okay.

She looked into his eyes and saw clearly the interest, the decency and concern. And all at once she felt it again, the heat that could fill her until she thought she might burst. The traitorous treacherous need.

Suddenly Annabelle felt like she’d been cornered by a bear. The only two words that seemed to make any sense were the ones she had told herself over and over for the past half-dozen years: never again.

Swallowing hard, she let her voice rise from her gut, deep and hoarse and packed with emotion. “I don’t need a big brother, Adam. I’m fine, Lia’s fine, we’re both fine.”

It was a rejection of everything he had to offer. Adam’s jaw flexed as he studied her. “You make it damn hard to be your friend. Why, Annabelle?” In the silence of the large house, the question seemed intimate and probing. His green eyes compelled her not to look away. “Everyone needs a friend, don’t they?”

Her heart thumped in her throat. “No,” she whispered.

Adam stared at her a long hard moment. “No?”

She shook her head. “I know you promised Lia you’d stay,” she said, forcing herself to speak calmly, “but really…I’d like to be alone.”

She saw anger flare briefly in his eyes. He masked it quickly with a wry smile and stood. “It seems to me we’ve played this scene before, so I won’t ask you if you’re sure. Just tell Lia I’m available if she needs anything and that I meant what I said about taking her to dinner to celebrate before I leave.” He waited for Annabelle’s nod. “So long, Belle.”

Annabelle stood as stiff as a statue, listening to Adam’s uneven gait as he walked down the hall. She heard the front door open and close and managed to work up a moment’s fierce satisfaction. The only reason he was staying in town was his broken foot; as soon as that healed he’d be off diving in Fiji or some-where, taping the mating rituals of stingrays.

At least now he got the picture. She didn’t need anyone walking in and out of her life. This was good. Very good. She was starting with a clean slate.

She picked up the tuna sandwich and took a bite, deciding her appetite had come back. In no time at all now, without so many bothersome personal distractions, she would get her business back on track. She would make sure Lia could attend the school of her dreams. And then she would attend to her own life. Maybe she would get herself some new friends. Good friends. The kind you could ring up to have coffee or share recipes with. Friends who would never ever make her feel like the world stopped spinning when they walked out the door.

Making an effort to swallow, she returned the sendwich to the plate.

Tuna and tears were a rotten combination.

Adam shoved the key into the back-door dead bolt lock with little enthusiasm for returning home.

He flicked on the kitchen light, crossed the Spanish-tiled floor and took a long swig from the plastic jug of springwater he kept on top of the refrigerator. Restless and moody, he headed to the living room, stood irresolute, then opened his front door and stepped onto the porch.

The early afternoon was cool and gray, with the sun content to play chorus to the clouds. Adam leaned against the porch rail, staring at the soft milky sky and at the strip of ocean he could see from his house. Spring could be the most romantic or the loneliest time of year at the beach. It all depended on your situation. Or your outlook.

At one time this rustic wooden porch had seemed like a lovers’ haven. And he’d been one of the lovers.

He crossed to the cushioned wooden swing that had been here as long as he could remember, since before his parents had bought the place. They’d made a number of changes over the years, but they’d kept the swing.

Running a finger along the heavy chain that suspended the wooden bench from the sturdy overhang, he gave it a push that sent it into motion, seating himself as the unit rocked gently.

Adam shook his head. Back in the days when his hormones had outrun his brain, he’d gotten a lot of use out of this old swing. Those teenage kissing marathons—conducted while his parents were out of the house—had been fun, but they weren’t the first, or the best, memory that flooded his mind when he sat on this porch and looked back…

“Celebrate with me, Adam!”

Delicate and blond, Annabelle held a bottle of pink champagne high in the air, a radiant triumphant smile spread across her face.

Adam took one look at her and thought, Yes, I’ll celebrate with you. Anytime, anyplace.

Annabelle stood below him, barefoot on his front lawn while he sat on the porch swing, listening to the squeaky chirp of the crickets.

He’d been out here for two hours, or maybe it was longer; he rarely wore a watch, and the mood he was in tended to make time blur.

Glancing at the dark sky, he saw that the moon was high and full.

“What are you doing out this late?” His voice was mellow, lazy, his smile for her, indulgent.

“Looking for someone to celebrate with.” He could see the sparkle of her eyes even in the dim illumination of the porch light. “Lia’s in bed already. She was exhausted.”

He grinned. “It went well,” he said. It was an affirmation, not a question. Adam knew she had been working like a dog to make her new business, Wedding Belles, a success. Annabelle had staged her first wedding tonight. He wished like hell he’d been there to lend a hand or just some moral support, but since his father’s last heart attack he had spent most of his time at his family’s dry-cleaning business.

Slowly, Annabelle shook her head. “No, it didn’t. It went great!” Laughing, she held the bottle of champagne aloft, like a smug Statue of Liberty. “I’m bursting with energy. I couldn’t sleep a wink if some-one hit me over the head.” She lowered the bottle. “I just had to tell someone, so I thought I’d see if you were in a festive mood.” He saw her squint doubtfully and watched her enthusiasm falter a bit. “Are you?”

“Am I?” he repeated softly. “What? In a festive mood?”

She nodded.

Adam almost sighed.

Festive? No, he wasn’t that. But sitting alone on his porch, brooding about the future, certainly wasn’t helping.

The smile he gave her was wry and lopsided, a bit like his mood. He nodded toward the fat bottle she held by the neck. “Did you bring glasses?”

Annabelle’s smile dropped so quickly her expression was almost comical. “I forgot. And I have plenty. I ordered way too many of them. I can run back home—”

“No.” Now that she was here, now that he’d decided to let her into his night, Adam didn’t want to let her go. She was spirit and life. She was exactly what he needed.

Annabelle. They’d grown closer than ever over the year since her parents’ death. Sometimes he thought their friendship was the only thing keeping him sane right now. Most of their contemporaries were still in college or still partying. Adam wasn’t interested in college or a frenetic social life, but he had dreams, dreams that would never be realized working twelve to fourteen hours a day in a damned dry cleaners.

His grandfather had started the business and his father had made it bigger. They owned two stores now and had plans to open a third—if Adam would straighten up and cooperate. Three generations of dry cleaners. It was his father’s dream—and Adam’s nightmare.

With Annabelle, he could relax, talk about his interests without feeling judged or foolish. It felt good, too, to return the favor, giving her a shoulder to cry on when she needed it. Yeah, he was damned grateful for their friendship, so he’d celebrate with her tonight even though he wasn’t in a celebratory mood, and he’d mean every toast, because if anybody deserved happiness, it was Annabelle.

“Come on up here.” He indicated the space next to him on the cushioned bench.

With a curve of lips that was almost shy, Annabelle padded up the steps and onto the painted wooden porch. The sheer flowered skirt of her sundress flirted with her calves as she moved.

Adam was sitting toward the middle of the swing. He could have slid over when she started to sit down, he should have slid over—but he didn’t.

Her thigh brushed his as she sat.

“What’re we going to drink out of?” Annabelle’s dulcet voice was lilting and sweet. It became a part of the night music.

Plucking the bottle from her slender fingers, he smiled. She had what he thought of as tea-drinker’s fingers, delicate and ladylike, the kind of fingers that would look just right looped through the handle of a bone-china cup.

He wondered if her hands were cool. If their touch would soothe a fever or ignite one.

The thought came swiftly and without warning, surprising him.

Lowering his head, he applied himself to the task of removing the foil wrap that covered the cork. Annabelle was an attractive woman, but she was his friend, not a date. Her parents had been kind to him. It had made him feel good, even honorable through the years to think he was returning the favor by watching out for their daughter’s welfare. So far in his life, honor had not been one of his strong suits.

Not so for Annabelle. He’d never met anyone more loving or committed. She had come home from college to care for her sister with a devotion that awed and impressed and sometimes almost shamed him. He could not acquiesce as unresistingly to his own family’s needs. He’d graduated from high school five years ago, had been working with his father full-time—overtime—ever since, and lately he felt like he was suffocating.

Uncoiling the wire secured around the champagne cork, he pointed the bottle away from them, placed both thumbs under the plastic top and pressed. A nice echoing thwup accompanied the popping of the cork. The bubbles whispered seductively.

Turning to the lovely young woman at his side, he took a moment to breathe in the clean flowery scent of her. Raising the bottle, he offered a toast.

“To your success, Annabelle. No one deserves it more than you.”

Her eyes locked with his. Her lips were slightly parted, and Adam found he could not pull his gaze away from their softness.

Raising the champagne to formally complete his tribute, he took a long slow swallow.

Her lips parted a bit more as she watched him. When he held the champagne out to her, she tucked her lower lip shyly between her teeth and accepted it.

The first sip made her place her hand on the base of her throat. A little giggle escaped her, and the delicate hand moved to her lips.

“It certainly is effervescent.” She grinned.

Adam nodded. So are you.

He didn’t realize he’d spoken the words out loud until he saw her expression change. She looked first surprised, then pleased, then bashful.

Silently, they passed the bottle back and forth for several minutes, listening to the night sounds and feeling the subtle excitement of sitting so close to each other.

Finally Adam realized that Annabelle had some-thing to say, but wasn’t sure whether she should speak or not. Her lowered gaze intrigued him.

“You’ve been such a wonderful friend, Adam.” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper.

“I wish I’d been able to help you more with the plans for tonight—”

“No, no,” she protested. “Everything was fine. Perfect, in fact. And you’ve been busy, I know.” The smile she turned to him was understanding. “But I’ve hardly seen you the past couple of months.”

He felt bad about that, but he’d been devoting the little free time he had lately at a nearby dock, refurbishing the small sloop that was his pride and joy— and part of his dream to sail around the world.

“I was going to stop by tomorrow to ask if you need anything.” He studied her seriously. “Anything at all, Belle.”

“No,” she murmured, but her gaze grew far away.

“How are your finances?” It was too important a topic to beat around the bush. And while he was away, he wouldn’t be able to keep tabs on her.

“Annabelle,” he tried again when she didn’t answer, knowing from past experience that she didn’t like to talk about her financial affairs.

From what he had gleaned, her parents had left her the house, a 1979 Chevy station wagon and a modest bank account. Annabelle was determined to handle on her own whatever financial woes she experienced. He was just as determined to help her.

“I have some money saved.” It was money to fund his trip, but if Annabelle needed it…“If you need anything at all…” He wondered if she was listening.

The domed bottom of the bottle rested on her thigh. She turned it in slow circles while her legs swung back and forth.

“Let’s not even call it a loan—” he began again, but Annabelle interrupted him with a question he couldn’t have anticipated.

“Do you have a girlfriend right now?”

He stared at her profile a good thirty seconds before answering. “No. I don’t.” Even as he told himself that the question was casual—and the answer immaterial—his heart began to pump with interest. “Why?”

She shrugged as if it was of no consequence really, but under the porch light he could see her blush. “Well, because I haven’t seen you much, I was curious. I just wondered. I…” Her legs stopped swinging. Giving the chilled bottle one last rotation, she looked up at Adam and completed her thought. “I’m glad.”

Adam knew he should speak, make light of what she said, change the topic, but he couldn’t, any more than he could drag his thoughts from what that rosebud mouth would taste like.

So he didn’t bother to speak. And he didn’t try to stop wondering.

Annabelle straightened her bare legs, crossed at the ankle, and pointed her toes. Adam was treated to a lingering glimpse of her shapely calves.

The impulse to close the distance between them, to touch her temple or her cheek or her neck, was almost too much to resist.

“Belle…” His voice sounded rusty.

She was twenty; he was two years older. They’d known each other for years, and always they’d been friends, nothing more. But lately…lately…

She looked at him. The hopeful tentative expression in her blue eyes sent a jolt of surprise sizzling through him.

Her smile was shy, but meant to encourage.

Slowly and with a sense of unreality, as if he was watching somebody else do it, Adam raised his hand to Annabelle’s face. He meant to touch her upper lip, the sweet bow that looked like the top half of a heart.

It’s wrong, a voice inside him cautioned, and he ceased all movement abruptly. How could he do this, change their relationship, when he knew that if all went well, in a few weeks he would no longer be here?

Frustration and desire made his hand shake. Annabelle must have misinterpreted his hesitation as a request for permission, because she took the moment into her own hands.

“I want you to touch me, Adam.” Her voice was a whisper, low and breathy and sweet.

Any control Adam retained snapped then.

With an incomprehensible utterance, he closed the space between them, burying his hand in the blond hair that swung around her neck.

He pulled her toward him, and the scent of the wine mingled with the unexpected heat of their need.

Their kiss was long and hard and deep. Adam’s fingers threaded through her silky hair, his palm cupped the back of her head. That left one hand free, and he had no trouble deciding where to put it.

At the first touch of his palm against the side of her breast, something broke free in both of them. She seemed to swell in his hand, and he…

Adam groaned against her lips. The strength of his desire shocked him.

They were playing with fire. He should have stopped. He would have, he told himself, but when Annabelle’s lips parted, he wanted more, and he started to take it.

Annabelle…Annabelle…It occurred to him then that he’d wondered for years what this would be like.

When the kiss finally ended, he pulled back enough to see that she was clutching the champagne bottle in a choke-grip that turned her knuckles white.

Reaching down, he pulled the bottle from her fingers, took a sip, swallowed, then set the bottle on the porch, reaching for Annabelle again, pressing his lips to hers so she could taste the wine while he tasted her.

Freed, her hands moved tentatively at first, then more surely. One slid around his waist and up his back. The other rested lightly along his jaw.

He discovered then what he’d wondered earlier: her hands were cool, yes, but they fanned the flame inside him.

In the back of his mind, a voice commanded him once again to stop, to remember that this was Annabelle, but when conscience warred with desire, it bred a sense of urgency, a need to speed past the point of no return so there would be no question of stopping. He was changing his life here tonight, he knew it, and suddenly he didn’t care. No desire had ever felt so important.

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Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.