All the Possibilities Read Free Page A

the kind that spoke of workouts three times a week and racquetball, but his was more like a swimmer's
    a channel swimmer's
    —
    —
    long and lean. He'd cut through currents with little resistance. His face wasn't smooth; there were a few lines of care in it that complemented the aristocratic cast of his face and his long, thin mouth. His nose was slightly out of alignment, which appealed to her. The dark hair and dark eyes made her think of a Bronte hero
    Heathcliff or Rochester, she wasn't sure. But he had a thoughtful,
    —
    brooding quality about him that was both restful and distracting. Shelby's lips curved again.
    "Sure. I guess you earned it. What are you drinking?"
    Alan reached toward the plate. "Scotch, straight up."
    "I knew you could be trusted." Shelby took the glass from him and sipped. Her eyes laughed over the rim; the faint breeze played with her hair. Moonlight, starlight, suited her. She looked, for a moment, like an elf who might vanish with a puff at will.
    "What are you doing here?" he asked her.
    "Maternal pressure," she told him easily. "Have you ever experienced it?" His smile was wry and appealing. "Paternal pressure is my specialty."
    "I don't imagine there's much difference," Shelby decided over a full mouth. Swallowing, she rested the side of her face on her palm. "Do you live in Alexandria?"
    "No, Georgetown."
    "Really? Where?"
    The moonlight glimmered in her eyes, showing him they were as pure a gray as he'd ever seen. "P Street."
    "Funny we haven't run into each other in the local market. My shop's only a few blocks from there."
    "You run a shop?" Funky dresses, velvet jackets, he imagined. Perhaps jewelry.
    "I'm a potter." Shelby pushed his glass back across the table.
    "A potter." On impulse, Alan took her hand, turning it over to examine it. Small and narrow, her fingers were long, with the nails clipped short and unpainted. He liked the feel of her hand, and the look of her wrist under a heavy gold bracelet. "Are you any good?"
    "I'm terrific." For the first time that she could remember, she had to suppress the urge to break contact. It ran through her mind that if she didn't, he was going to hold her there until she forgot she had other places to go. "You're not a Washington native," she continued, experimenting by letting her hand stay in his. "What is it

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    "Massachusetts. Very good." Sensing the slight resistance in her hand, Alan kept it in his as he picked up another hors d'oeuvre and offered it.
    "Ah, the trace of Harvard lingers." So did a slight disdain in her voice. His eyes narrowed fractionally at it. "Not medicine," she speculated as she allowed her fingers to lace with his. It was already becoming a very comfortable sensation. "Your palms aren't smooth enough for medicine."
    Perhaps one of the arts? she wondered, again noticing that romantically brooding expression in his eyes. A dreamer, she suspected
    a man who tended to think things
    —
    through layer by layer before he acted.
    "Law." Alan accepted the careful study as well as the faint surprise on her face.
    "Disappointed?"
    "Surprised." Although his voice suited the law, she decided smooth and clean with
    —
    undercurrents that might have been drama or humor. "But then I suppose my conception of lawyers is at fault. Mine has jowls and wears tortoiseshell glasses. Don't you think the law tends to get in the way of a lot of ordinary things?" His brow lifted in direct harmony with the comer of his mouth. "Such as murder and mayhem?"
    "Those aren't ordinary things
    well, maybe mayhem," Shelby corrected as she took
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    another sip from his glass. "I suppose I mean the endless red tape of bureaucracy. Do you know all the forms I have to fill out just to sell my pieces? Then someone has to read those forms, someone else has to file them, and someone else has to send out more when the time comes. Wouldn't it be simpler just to let me sell a vase and make my living?"
    "Difficult when