“You've been avoiding me," he said, talking to the sandwich.I laughed. He looked over at me. "Sorry. I just realized that you talk to a lot of inanimate objects.”

“He finally cleared his throat. "Well, huh." "Yeah," I said. "What now?" "Well"—he cleared his throat again—"I guess you and I go. I mean, unless you really don't want to." Why put it on me to bail out? "Do you want to?" I asked. "Yeah. I really do. I had to talk Dad into giving me the afternoon off. And since I don't usually go to a lot of trouble to fix lunch, it seems a shame to waste the effort. Besides, there's the thing I want you to see." He said all of this while staring at the door like he was talking to it. I almost expected it to respond.”

“Tell me there's more to it than just adding water," he said.I gave him a pointed look. "Nope. that's all there is to it."he looked over his shoulder at the doorway that led to the living room, then back at me. "Matchmaking?"I grimaced and nodded."You don't look thrilled.""It's my love life, and everyone treats it like it's a community project.”

“I'm trying to figure out how much I need to deposit into the Kate-have-a-good-time fund," he said."It's pretty empty.You might have to make a substanial deposit." I couldn't believe how breathless I sounded,like I'd been running beside a snowmobile instead of riding on it.His grin grew."I'm still strapped for cash.""You're torturing me,you know thst? Did you take lessons from Sam?""I'm torturing you?Geez,you've been torturing me since the day we got here.”

“He kicked me out,okay?""How can a guy who only has one good leg to stand on kick you out?""He doesn't want me around.""I find that hard to believe, Katie.""Yeah,well,he threw snow at me and told me to leave."She looked astounded.As well she should be."Where did he get snow?" she asked.Okay,I'd obviously misread the reason for her astonishment.It wasn't that he'd thrown snow at me,but that he'd had snow to throw.”

“The weather,I finally thought.The weather was always a good topic of conversation. "That was some blizzard we had last week,wasn't it?" I asked, since he'd been at Cynthia's instead of with us.We could talk about the blackouts,the shrieking winds-He perked up, looked around. "There's a Dairy Queen in town?I didn't know that.Where is it?"I heard Allie snicker.Sam took up for his friend. "It's an understandable mistake.”

“You're my favorite sister." I snorted. "Gosh,I'd hate to be your unfavorite sister. I might not survive.""Hey,Kate,you know I'm just teasing when I give you a hard time.""Yeah,right,and the teasing just keeps me laughing.”