Just Like a Man by Elizabeth Bevarly Page A

loneliness, that was all. Because ever since Michael Sawyer had walked into her office, her condition had been especially acute.
    And speaking of cute, Michael was certainly that tonight. She had thought him handsome in a suit and tie, but dressed in more normal clothes like jeans and a sweater, the man was quite… She sighed in spite of herself. Breathtaking. That was what he was. Because he seemed so… normal. So accessible. So available. And even though she tried to tell herself otherwise, she was pretty sure that that, at least, had nothing to do with the wine.
    "Please," she said, stirring herself almost physically from the strange reverie that wanted to encompass her, "stay. You can even have some cake, if you want."
    And that, she decided,
had
to be the wine talking. Because never had Hannah wanted to share her birthday—especially her birthday cake—with anyone. Something about having Michael here, though, in her home, on a special occasion like this, just felt… good. Normal. Right. And she couldn't remember anyone ever feeling that way.
    Chianti,
she told herself again. That had to be it. It was just one of the many reasons Italians were such gregarious people.
    In silent invitation, she turned and made her way back to the dining room, smiling over her shoulder when she saw that Michael was following. Too late, she remembered the stack of gifts sitting on the table beside the cake, and she hoped he wouldn't comment on them. It would be too unsettling—not to mention flat-out humiliating—to have to share her imaginary family and friends with someone else.
    "You even have gifts to open," he said, dashing her hope before it was even fully formed. He hesitated in the doorway. "Honestly, I can go. I really don't want to intrude."
    "You're not intruding," she said to be polite. Then she realized it wasn't courtesy at all that made her say it. He really wasn't intruding. She actually liked having him here. "I can open my gifts later."
    "Looks like you have a generous family," he said, dipping his head toward the stack. He smiled, a sympathetic sort of smile that made Hannah melt a little more inside. "So who are your gifts from?" he asked.
    She really wished she could have headed off that question. Ah, well. She could fib a bit. He'd never know the truth. And there was certainly no harm that could come as a result of what she would be fibbing about. It wasn't like she was going to tell him she could hack into the computers of the International Monetary Fund. "The big one on the bottom is from my Great-Aunt Esmeralda. The others are from my parents, my Nana Frost, my Cousin Chloe, and my best friend from first grade, Patsy."
    Hannah started to change the subject after that, but Michael continued before she had a chance.
    "I don't have much family myself," he said. "Me and Alex. That's about it."
    "Your parents are gone?" she asked.
    This time he was the one to nod. "I lost them both within a few years of each other not long after I graduated from college."
    "I'm sorry," she said.
    "Thanks. They were quite a bit older than me. I was kind of a late-life surprise to them. They'd tried for years to have kids without being successful, and just when they gave up, I came along."
    "I bet they doted on you," Hannah said softly.
    He nodded. "Oh, yeah. Spoiled me rotten, only child that I was. Like Alex. Not that he's spoiled, I mean. Well, not too bad. Is your family close by?" he asked quickly, and somehow she sensed that he was the one trying to change the subject this time.
    "Ah, no," she said. "No. My parents, both of them—they're still married," she lied effortlessly, because lying about her parents had always been effortless to her on account of the truth would have been so much harder to tell. "They live in Kansas. Where I grew up."
    She said that because Kansas had always been her idea of the perfect place to live, centered as it was at the heart of the nation. Nothing terrible ever happened in Kansas. It was where