Liam pushed open the kitchen door to his parents' place and strode across the terra cotta tiled floor. He sidestepped Red Dog, who wove around his feet, and threw his car keys on the table. "I don't believe it. I kissed her in the middle of the lawn. And before that, I kissed her up against an avocado-green fridge, and I didn't even get her name."

"As apologies go for being late, that's not bad," Liam's sister, Becca McDonald Caruthers, responded. She cradled her seven-month-old daughter protectively. "It's all right, Rosiland, we don't mind your uncle Liam kissing strange women in the middle of the day, but his mentioning kitchen appliances in odious colors is certainly inappropriate for impressionable ears."

"C'mere, Rosie, when your mother's gone I'll teach you a few more inappropriate things." Liam grabbed his niece by the underarms. "We'll start by learning how to crush an aluminum can against your forehead and move on from there."

The baby crowed and flexed her legs furiously in her yellow stretch pajamas. Pieces of masticated banana held tightly in her little hand dribbled on his shirt. He didn't bother to wipe it off.

Becca picked up a diamond chandelier earring from the kitchen counter. "I wish you wouldn't call her Rosie. It's so dŽclassŽ."

"What's wrong with Rosie? It sounds like roses, and I have a certain fondness for roses." Liam was too chipper to let his sister's needling get to him. Besides, he knew his good humor would annoy her.

It did. Becca walked over and grabbed Liam's car keys just as the baby was starting to eat them. "And, please, don't let her choke while I'm at this fund-raiser. It looks very bad to go to a charity dinner-dance supporting children-at-risk when your own offspring is in jeopardy."

"Since when have I ever jeopardized my goddaughter?" He moved his hand and let Rosie gnaw on his knuckles. "Geez, the kid is teething like crazy. Don't you have any frozen bagels in your house? I'm pretty sure Cook stocked some here." A sudden smile crossed his face as other frozen things and someone else came to mind.

Becca, reading his smile the wrong way, made a face and crossed her arms in front of her figure-hugging, bodice-cut black gown. The stitched ruche up the side exposed a large expanse of trim leg in a fetching and decidedly expensive way, a come-hither allure coupled with a prep school pedigree. Kind of like having LOOK-DON'T TOUCH etched in gold leaf.

Becca had worked hard to get back in shape after the baby and was damn proud of it. She strutted to the double refrigerator/freezer and pulled out a bagel. "Do you have any idea how irritating it is to have my younger, single brother standing there smirking, just because he knows more about mothering than I do?" she asked with annoyance.

She sighed and handed the bagel to her daughter. Rosie stuck out a chubby fist and grabbed it, causing Becca to smile the joyous smile of a mother. Some things were instinctive it seemed. Happy now, Becca turned back to Liam. "So what's this about kissing mystery women?"

"Only one woman," Liam corrected. "And it's a long story, involving a possible concussion."

She peered at her brother. "A concussion might knock some sense into you."

This is why he avoided explaining anything to anyone, especially his sister. "Not me, the mystery woman, as you call her."

"Well, tell me the quick version of your encounter, leaving out anything that involves blood. I need to leave in five minutes, max. I'm meeting Dalton at the dinner since he had a quarterly report to go over and couldn't leave Manhattan early. He's driving directly from the train station, you see."

Events, quarterly reports, commuting from New York. Liam suddenly remembered why he had left Grantham in the first place. He shuddered. "I'm glad someone in the family is responsible, even if we had to import him through marriage."

"Liam, I am not not responsible. I am a mother, a working mother."

"Only a McDonald could claim that giving people advice on hand-painted china is a career."

"Liam, a very select group - including private collectors and museums -- values my services. If I authenticate a piece of Japanese export china, it's like money in the bank. And I've saved others terrible embarrassment, not to mention great financial loss. Just the other day, I saved one collector from spending a fortune on a fake specimen."

Liam coughed. "Frankly, I find it amazing the number of people who shell out big bucks on the genuine article."

"Pooh-pooh my efforts all you want. At least I've been behaving like any civilized McDonald would. You, on the other hand, have been pretending for years that you're not one of us." Becca sat in the ladder-back chair next to the marble-topped table and crossed her legs.

McDonalds did not do stools and kitchen islands. In general, they didn't do cooking in kitchens either, leaving that for dedicated servants.

She waggled her silvery high-heeled sandal. Somehow, even her pedicured toes managed to appear critical of him. "Just look at your pattern of behavior."

Liam pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down, resting his niece on one knee. He let Rosie torture his earlobe and silently let the baby's mother finish her usual diatribe.

"You snub your nose at the entire family and jump a tramp steamer and head for Australia."

"Hey, I was gainfully employed, doing menial labor, but gainfully employed." Red Dog joined Liam and licked the banana off his shirt. Becca winced. "Besides, I came back to the States and went to college -- okay, so it was the University of Montana and not the august Grantham University. Nevertheless, I still managed to keep up one time-honored McDonald tradition." He sounded particularly jovial.

Becca raised her eyebrows dubiously.

"By doing my fair share of excessive drinking, of course. Now, stopping the way I did, on the other hand, that was the rebellious part."

There was nothing funny about it -- of course. Still, Liam knew all too well that drinking and alcoholism weren't topics for discussion among the McDonalds. Just look at the way they'd handled last summer's disaster. Young Cousin Patch had gotten so loaded one night with his buddies that he'd actually thought he could walk on top of a train. The result of that drunken foolishness was that he would never walk again, on any surface. All anyone had said afterward was "Poor Cousin Patch."

Where had Liam been when this tragedy happened? Climbing Mt. Kilamanjaro and ignoring Patch's mother's suggestion that maybe he should take the eighteen year old along with him. Liam was left to wonder everyday, that maybe if he hadn't blown off her request...

He had already tried to make amends. He'd insisted Patch spend some time with him in Montana, away from generations of family denial.

Now, however, Liam knew there was no point preaching to Becca. Instead, it was a time for filial solidarity. "Quit complaining," he kidded his sister. "I got my law degree, didn't I? I've come back to the old homestead." Even if it was only temporary.

Becca sighed. "Yes, you did come back, and even before that, we were all extremely grateful the way you managed to get Cousin Patch off Percocet by introducing him to your wheelchair athlete friends out West."

"Yeah, well, I could say my good deed was a little after the fact. Oh, whatever. Right now, I'm intent on rectifying something of the family legacy. It's the major reason I came home, after all."

For a moment, Liam thought Becca was going to get up and give him a hug, but she held back. McDonalds might boast an inordinate share of drunks, but even those with blood alcohol levels of point-oh-eight maintained stiff upper lips, eschewing all outward displays of affection. And the cold sober ones tended to act like pillars of salt.

"And really, Liam, give yourself some credit. You make a marvelous babysitter. In fact, you're probably a better mother than I am." Becca looked at Rosie nestled contentedly in her brother's lap.

"That's not true, Becca," Liam consoled her. "It's just that I worry about it less than you do."

"And did you ever think that maybe I worry about you, too?" Okay, for a pillar of salt she'd been known to crumble on occasion.

"I mean, look at you." She held out an open palm. The discreet platinum and diamond bracelet slid down her slim wrist. "A healthy, all-American male, maybe somewhat past his prime --"

"Hey, I resent that. I'm thirty-two. I'm just hitting my stride."

Becca snorted, a somewhat horsy snort. "Hitting your stride? I don't think so. As far as I can tell your social life consists of jogging with that stupid dog and babysitting for me. Not that I'm complaining about the babysitting, but, really, where does that leave your love life?"

Liam shifted in his chair, bouncing the baby on his thigh. He was not about to discuss sex with his sister.

"When was the last time you brought home a girl?" Becca carried on, oblivious to Liam's discomfort or the fact that the clock was ticking by. "If memory serves me correctly, it was almost three years ago and then it was some cross-country skier who had thunder thighs and insisted on eating muesli with plain yogurt -- on the side, no less."

Liam rubbed the tiny lines on baby Rosie's fingers, marveling that even someone so small came with all the requisite knuckles and wrinkles, and thought back to the cross-country skier. True, she had been a mistake, though those thighs were capable of some pretty interesting moves on and off the snow.

Speaking of moves... He stared toward the butler's pantry, not registering the sedately tarnishing serving platters and ornate candelabra. Instead, his thoughts were on his Mystery Woman.

Even he was starting to think of her as that now. Truth be told, he'd almost cracked up the car driving home just thinking about her lips.

Liam frowned when another, more pressing thought invaded his reverie. He directed his attention at Becca, who seemed to be making fish faces at him, which was pretty strange even for her. And then he realized she was hamming it up for Rosie.

He leaned forward, bouncing the baby on his knee. "Speaking of taking an interest in something other than my dog and your offspring, you know those yellow flowers that are planted all around the back?"

Rosie gurgled in delight and held her arms out to her mother.

Becca clapped her hands in time to a Mozart minuet. "Are you talking about the daffodils?" She glanced up at Liam.

"That's right, daffodils. Is it possible to get about one hundred forty of them, not cut, but to plant? Right now, so that they'd be blooming?"

Becca raised one brow. "Is this newly found interest in horticulture in any way connected to kissing a certain mystery lady?"

"There's nothing really to tell." He shrugged off the inquiry. "Just a bit of a mix-up that I'm trying to fix."

Becca held her hands together. She wasn't buying it. "Liam, the details."

"I thought you were in a rush to get to your fund-raiser?"

She straightened up. "So I miss the soggy hors d'oeuvres. Trust, me -- this is far more interesting than stuffed mushroom caps. And you might as well start singing now because I will get you to talk. I have my ways. Just remember how I got you to tell me what you and Cousin Geoffrey were doing in the pool house with the female exchange students from Brazil?"

Liam winced. "Please, did you have to remind me?"

Becca narrowed her eyes. She could look very scary when she wanted to. "Well, that little trick will hurt even more, now that you're physically mature. So unless you want to try a new career as a countertenor..."

Liam held the wiggling Rosie tightly on his lap. The only thing scarier than an older sister with a degree in art history from Vassar was an older sister with a degree in art history from Vassar wearing extremely lethal stiletto heels.

###

"I don't believe it. I kissed him in the middle of the front yard, and he doesn't even know my name," J.C. moaned into the phone. "And that was after I'd kissed him up against the refrigerator -- my mother's refrigerator, no less. And that's not even the worst part. The worst part is I hit my head, and I've got this big bump on my forehead. Only maybe that isn't the worst part. The worst part is there was blood everywhere, just like I did when I was fifteen."

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Phoebe? Phoebe? Are you there?" J.C. was curled up in the middle of the couch, the cordless phone cradled between her chin and shoulder. The bag of peas, getting beyond soggy by now, required the firm grip of one hand.

She picked at the corner of a green velveteen throw pillow with gold braiding. Truly dreadful, especially in the context of the ivory and gold brocade couch on which it lay. At least J.C. had removed the clear vinyl cover that her mother had insisted on, leaving the sofa in pristine sixties glory and with a vague, highly flammable odor.

"Let me get this straight. Did you hit your head before or after you kissed him, either the first or second time or both?" asked the female voice with the distinct New Jersey accent. It was the kind of accent that conveyed a permanent sinus condition along with a strong case of I'm asking this even though I'm sure I really don't want to know the answer.

J.C. tossed the pillow back on the couch. "Phoebe, the important point isn't so much that I hit my head -- though there is the possibility of a concussion, since I did pass out -- but that I kissed him. HIMMM," she practically screamed into the phone like a crazed adolescent.

"Concussion!" That knocked the blasŽ Jersey stuffing out of Phoebe. "Why didn't you say so in the first place? I'm coming over right away. Who knows what could happen? You could slip into a coma and miss the season finale of Alias -- not that anyone ever knows what's really happening on that show anyway. And besides, I need you to help Trina with her math homework sometime this weekend."

"But, Phoebe, about the kiss-"

"Unless you were kissing Brad Pitt or some other heartthrob, I think the details can wait." Phoebe's jadedness came from the fact that her ex-husband's kissing prowess had ranked somewhere between a dead guppy and a desiccated nectarine. Her subsequent and infrequent forays into the dating scene had not done anything to reevaluate her estimation of the osculating powers of the local Jersey male.

"I mean, I can't remember the last time a male god came close to Hightstown. Wait a minute. Wasn't it back in high school when Liam McDonald showed up wearing those tiny little Speedos and you cracked your head open at the sight of his not-so-tiny you-know-what..." There was a pause on the phone. "Don't tell me?"

J.C. gave up on the peas. "You may not be able to do math, Phoebe, but nobody ever accused you of being dumb."

###

"So how was it? The best buzz ever? I mean, better than tequila shooters? Better than a half dozen Long Island Iced Teas?"

As a single mom with a full-time job as a real estate agent, it was true that Phoebe Freeman's social life was limited to driving her twelve-year-old daughter Trina and her middle school girlfriends to the surround-sound, stadium-seating multiplex, where buckets of buttered popcorn and cheese-covered nachos cost nearly a semester's tuition at Rutgers.

J.C. sat there polishing off the remains of an ancient bottle of Crme de Menthe -- they'd already finished the rest of the Jim Beam from her mother's pristinely preserved liquor closet -- and leaned her head against the back of the sofa.

She had changed to flannel pajama bottoms and a tank top that once upon a time covered her belly button. Narrowing her eyes, J.C. pictured the kiss. The two kisses, actually, in supreme detail. "So you want to know how he kissed?"

Phoebe nodded her head vigorously, or as vigorously as someone who was now applying maximum effort to a bottle of Kahlua. "God, when was the last time this thing was open. This sucker is stuck on tight." She applied her teeth to the cap, gave a grunt, and then successfully undid the twist top. She jiggled the bottle, swirling what little remained inside, and then took a swig right out of the top.

Phoebe sighed. "You know, I never thought I'd say this, but TNGF has actually proved useful." TNGF referred to Phoebe's ex, Fred, and was short for THE NO GOOD...let's just say that FRED was not the last word. "At least he's taking care of Trina tonight."

Phoebe tipped the bottle over her head and milked the last drops of alcohol. Then she looked around the living room and grimaced. "When are you going to let me put this house on the market and let me find you a nice townhouse with a swimming pool, A.C., and neighbors who aren't already collecting Social Security benefits?" Phoebe was a well-meaning friend, but also a real estate agent who was determined to join the Gold Seal listing at Weichert Realtors.

"Please," J.C. pleaded, "let me deal with one thing in my life at a time - actually two. Making partner-" she groaned into her tumbler remembering her conversation with Triple A "-and kissing Liam McDonald. You do want to hear about the kiss, don't you?"

"I certainly don't want to hear, yet again, about the misogynist bunch of lawyers you are so keen on joining for reasons that escape me. And if go all legal righteous-numbers-bizarro on me and try to explain one more time how by reading the past fifteen years of some pharmaceutical company's reports, you were able to figure out that they were stealing the pension fund blind, I am going to croak."

"Excuse me. Largely due to my investigations, the employees filed a successful class action suit against that company."

"But you were supposed to be representing the company in closing down one of its branches! You're a property lawyer for God's sake!"

"I suppose there is that." J.C. narrowed her eyes. If Phoebe was going to continue to be unsympathetic about J.C.'s endeavors to establish her worth among the privileged elite -- all the while not succumbing to their outmoded discriminatory practices and uppity ways, geesh, she sounded like a raving Bolshevik -- she had a good mind to refuse any further details of her encounter with Liam.

But then the urge to gloat, to relive the moment got the better of her. "You remember how Toby Maguire kissed Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman?"

Phoebe closed one eye in thought. "Liam McDonald was upside down, wearing a mask, and it was raining."

"Well, no, but let's just say it was a cinematic moment of epic proportions."

"And it was twice?"

J.C. smiled and had another sip of Crme de Menthe. God, the stuff was terrible. She knew she'd regret it in the morning. "Yeah, twice."

Phoebe whistled. "If it was that good, no wonder you hit your head."

"No, I hit my head before." J.C. gave her a brief rundown of the encounter at the farm and later at the house.

"So what are you going to do now?" Phoebe asked.

"What do you mean, what am I going to do now? The guy doesn't even know my name."

"But he knows your lips. Besides, if Liam McDonald is living at his family's place in upper crusty Grantham, you can just look him up in the phone book and call."

"I can't do that."

"And why not?" Phoebe bent over -- swayed was more accurate -- and fished a cell phone out of her Gucci bag. Successfully selling real estate, even within the confines of Hightstown, might not put her in the league of John D. Rockefeller, but it definitely opened the door to designer accessories.

"Here, call information." Phoebe tossed the phone with surprising accuracy on the cushion next to J.C. Though, perhaps not so surprising. After all, Phoebe Freeman, nŽe Phoebe Warnecke, had been the star pitcher on the school softball team before she'd discovered love in the arms of Fred "GOOD 'N BED" Freeman on the backseat of his brother's Trans Am -- not to mention the throes of morning sickness one week before graduation. Three dysfunctional years of marriage had followed, after which, no, even before, GOOD 'N BED had became THE NO GOOD F-- and Phoebe assumed the mantle of single motherhood.

J.C. stared at the phone. "I can't."

"You can't? You can't read the numbers on account of your concussion?"

"It's not that." J.C. yanked at a thread hanging from the bottom of her tank top, unraveling the hem and exposing more of her midriff. "It's just that the whole thing is crazy. I mean, me and him."

"What's so crazy? He's a hunk and even though you're thirty, you're still a babe. And last I heard, you're unattached and, I assume, so is he."

"But he's LIAM MCDONALD!" J.C. protested. "And I'm...well...I'm me."

"You mean a young, attractive, successful lawyer?"

J.C. rolled her eyes, which exacerbated her headache, either the result of the bumps or too much alcohol or both.

All right, Phoebe was right about one thing. J.C. had gotten her law degree and even clerked for an appellate court judge before coming back to Jersey. But young and attractive? Just the other day she was sure she had spotted the signs of incipient cellulite on her upper thighs. And her melting pot of pronounced features? They didn't quite fit the golden, all-American girl image. Reese Witherspoon she wasn't.

"Besides," J.C. countered, "he said he'd be the one to get in touch."

"Chicken," Phoebe snorted.

J.C. shrugged. "I prefer to think of it as being a realist. And if Liam McDonald's really going to follow through like he said he would, he knows where to find me." Not that she was holding out much hope. Truthfully, the odds maker in her was holding out no hope.

But the foolish dreamer, the side of her she thought she'd packed away along with her Dukes of Hazard T-shirt and Strawberry Shortcake music box, thought that maybe, just maybe, there might be a glimmer of hope.

Phoebe clunked the empty bottle of Kahlua on the coffee table. "Well, so much for that. And seeing as we're just going to sit around and wait, how about we find out what Slivovitz tastes like. I've always been dying to know."

###

The Slivovitz had definitely been a mistake.

Phoebe was still snoozing it off the next morning in J.C.'s parents' double bed, when J.C. woke and hobbled to the bathroom. There was a pounding in her head, this thudding beat, like someone was imitating the opening bars of Law & Order -- only badly.

She grabbed the bathroom doorknob. The pounding continued and she braved a glimpse in the mirror. J.C. winced.

Sometime during the long, debauched evening of drink, Phoebe had insisted on putting cornrows in J.C.'s hair. After acquiring one very crooked braid above her left ear, J.C. had put an end to the folly. Thank God she hadn't let Phoebe tweeze her eyebrows, despite her insistence that she could make J.C. look like Jennifer Garner.

THUMPA. THUMPA. THUMPA. The pounding. It was back, just like Chucky.

J.C. moaned and held onto the edges of the sink, trying to remember why she had thought going to the bathroom was such a good idea. It was impossible to think, what with the repetitive thudding. Was it some internal death knoll, reminding her of her doomed career?

J.C. raised her head -- a mistake if ever there was one -- and attempted to concentrate. And that's when she realized that the THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA was coming from outside, and not from inside her head.

She stumbled down the hallway, grabbed the stairway railing with two hands, and descended slowly. She kept her eyes partially closed, feeling it was wiser to approach the world from a mole-like perspective. As if to mock her, the morning sun cruelly streamed through the narrow slits.

She crossed the front landing in her bare feet, her neuron endings hardly registering the passing from hardwood floor to carpeting, and rested her hand on the front door knob. The THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA was now a THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA.

Cautiously opening the door a couple of inches, J.C. eased her nose through the opening. Her hand quickly found her forehead, but it made a miserable shield against the foul sun. Her vision was blurry, her center of gravity had somehow shifted to the back of her throbbing head, and her mouth was beyond the restorative powers of Listerine. J.C. squinted, attempting to connect with the world at large.

THUMPA THUMPA THUMPA.

One thing for sure. It wasn't Chucky.