Think About Love by Vanessa Grant Page A

interrupting her routine to tell her about a new idea, a new way to make computers dance to his vision. "Sam, this is probably the best business decision I've made since the day I hired you."
    "I don't think we should—"
    "We'll work out the details after supper. When you go home after work, do you usually eat dinner in your suit?"
    "No, I—"
    "Then change. We'll eat; then we'll work out the details."
    "And will I get to finish my sentences?" she snapped.
    "Change first," he said and turned his back and walked into Dorothy's kitchen.
    Cal, dishing up dinner in her grandmother's house. The world had gone mad, but wearing a business suit wasn't doing anything to keep control of this conversation, so she may as well be comfortable.
    She hadn't realized how hungry she was until ten minutes later when she sat down to the smells of fried chicken, baked potato, and tender asparagus tips.
    "There wasn't time for baked potato."
    "I cheated. Six minutes in the microwave, fifteen in the oven."
    "Oh."
    She didn't know this Cal. She'd eaten with him before: business dinners in fine restaurants, clients entertained at his home with caterers providing the food, tepid meals in airplanes, and many pizzas eaten while working late in the board room on market plans, expansion requirements. Even one memorable dinner eaten long after midnight, during an endless night in which they examined travel schedules, expense claims, and computer-log entries to discover which employee was giving company secrets to the competition.
    "How did you learn to cook?"
    He placed a baked potato on her plate, added a chicken breast. "My mother taught both my sister and me. She's a doctor—my parents both are. Mom was always determined we'd eat properly, even if she wasn't there to cook. Once she'd taught us, we all took turns."
    She cut into the potato, saw that he'd found sour cream and chives. She wasn't certain what to do with a Cal who made dinner, who suggested a business deal that required marriage.
    "You have a sister?"
    "Adrienne. She's three years younger, a doctor as well—an obstetrician. She's always trying to find a wife for me."
    "I didn't know you were looking for a wife."
    "I wasn't."
    She concentrated on the potato, the sour cream. Then she cut into the chicken, a small piece because how could she eat, with Cal's suggestion of marriage hanging between them?
    "I guess I should ask if there's someone else," said Cal.
    She swallowed a mouthful of chicken without chewing. "No."
    "Marrying me wouldn't be stepping on someone else's territory?"
    "I thought we were going to eat before we talked about this, but since we're not, let's settle this." She put her fork down. "I'm not looking for a husband. Not now, not ever."
    He smiled, actually smiled. "OK, so tell me about your family. I know almost nothing about you. Tell me about your sister, about Dorothy."
    She didn't know what to say. Why was he calling her Samantha? He never called her that, always Sam. Sarah was the only other person who had always called her Sam.
    "Tell me about your family," he urged quietly.
    "I'm not going to marry you. It's crazy."
    "I'll tell you about mine, then."
    He picked up her fork, handed it to her. Mechanically, she began eating as he told her about his sister, Adrienne, who had nursed wounded birds and stray animals as a child, who'd gone to college intending to become a vet, until a pregnant friend asked her to be her labor coach.
    Samantha had never placed family around Cal in her mind, and doing so now, seeing him with his sister who loved babies and wanted to marry off her brother, made him somehow much too real.
    "She's not married?"
    "No, and she claims she never will be, unless she can find a man like our father, who isn't threatened by a strong woman."
    A man like Cal, she thought, remembering the times they'd argued about what was best for Tremaine's. As a consultant, she'd learned to be very careful opposing a client's conviction about what was good for his