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it. My life in a nutshell."
     
    "Hmm." Lee tapped her finger on the bar. "I detect some whitewashing. You wouldn't be trying to hide an unsavory past from me, now would you, Mr. Grayden?"
     
    "Who? Me? Never."
     
    "Uh-huh. Exemplary?"
     
    "Well… maybe exemplary isn't the right word."
     
    "And what would be the right word?"
     
    Jake glanced pointedly at the clock behind the bar. "Whoa. Look at the time." He started to get up from his chair. "Alex probably needs help with—"
     
    "Alex has finished restocking." Alex lounged against a cooler, his arms folded across his chest. "You wouldn't be trying to avoid the lovely lady's question now, would you, Jake?"
     
    "Who? Me? Never."
     
    "Uh-huh," Alex and Lee said in unison.
     
    Jake looked at her. "Honestly, there is nothing—"
     
    "Tell her about—"
     
    "Alex," Jake growled.
     
    "About what," Lee asked.
     
    Alex came forward and taking her glass, refilled it with soda. "Did Lover Boy tell you what he went to college for?"
     
    She shook her head.
     
    "Emily doesn't want to hear about that," Jake said. "Do you, sweetheart?"
     
    "Yes, she does," Alex answered for her. He flicked his thumb at Jake and said, "He's got a Ph.D. in Chemistry."
     
    A hand of its own volition drifted up to touch the base of her throat. She gaped at Jake. "Chemistry?"
     
    Color stained Jake's cheekbones. "It's nothing."
     
    Alex snorted. "It's nothing," he mocked. "He's a veritable genius and a paragon of modesty. He can recite every element on the Periodic Table from memory and he calls it nothing."
     
    "I am not a genius. Just a good memory." Jake got to his feet. "Did you take out the trash?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "Clean the bathrooms?"
     
    Alex ignored him and spoke to Lee. "He graduated at the top of his class and when—"
     
    Jake grumbled something, then turned and walked towards the store room.
     
    Alex laughed.
     
    Lee stared after him. "I get the feeling that Jake doesn't like to talk about his doctorate." She turned to Alex as she slipped from her chair. "Excuse me."
     
    Alex nodded. "Ask Doctor Jake why he preferred laying sheet rock to working in an air-conditioned laboratory. When he tells you, maybe you can enlighten me. I haven't been able to get it out of him in the five years I've known him."
     
    Lee slid her purse across the counter. "Keep an eye on it for me. If the cell phone rings, answer it."
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
    Lee opened the door Jake disappeared through and found him moving boxes around the storage room.
     
    Jake glanced up as she came in. "Did he tell you?"
     
    She shook her head and closed the door.
     
    He stacked a case of beer in the corner, then bent to get another one. "Hell, there's a first time for everything." Beer bottles clinked as he plopped the case in the corner.
     
    Lee leaned against the wall and wrapped her arms around her middle. "I am curious as to why someone would spend so much time getting a doctorate in Chemistry only to become a third owner in a bar." She bent her knee and flattened her foot up against the wall.
     
    Jake hefted another case onto the growing pile in the corner. "And I'm curious why you had to ever worry about getting off the streets. Care to enlighten me?"
     
    She shook her head.
     
    "Then we're even." He moved on to straighten a precarious stack of boxes.
     
    Lee pursed her lips and stared at the floor. It appeared that they were at an impasse. A crossroads. A fork in the road. If she didn't tell him what he wanted to know, then whatever might happen between them might never happen.
     
    She could keep the details of her past away from him and he could keep his from her. That would be the safest path. The no risk path. If she didn't tell him, their relationship might never evolve to its potential.
     
    Then again, if she did tell him, their relationship might or might not move to the next logical step. And she wanted that next logical step. She wanted that next step badly.
     
    What would Marilyn tell her