aine cracked open one eye and glared at the clock, which was emitting an extremely annoying high-pitched beeping sound. Finally recognizing it as the alarm – after all, she’d never heard it at two A.M. before – she reached over and slapped it. She snuggled down in the renewed silence, wondering why in hell the alarm had gone off at that ungodly hour.

Because she had set it to go off at that ungodly hour, that was why.

“No,” she moaned to the dark room. “I can’t get up. I’ve only been in bed four hours!”

She got up anyway. She had had the presence of mind before going to bed to prepare the coffeemaker and set the timer for 1:50. The smell of coffee drew her, stumbling, to the kitchen.

She turned on the overhead light, then had to squint her eyes against the glaring brightness.

“Television people are aliens,” she mumbled as she reached for a cup. “Real humans wouldn’t do this on a regular basis.”

With one cup of coffee in her, she managed to make it into the shower. As the water poured down on top of her head, she remembered that she hadn’t intended to wash her hair. Since she hadn’t factored in the time to wash and dry her hair when she calculated the time to get up, she was now officially behind schedule. She groaned and leaned against the wall. “I can’t do this.”

A minute later, she talked herself into trying. She rapidly shampooed and loofahed herself, and three minutes later jumped out of the shower. With another cup of coffee steaming close to hand, she blow-dried her hair, then used a dab of hair gloss to smooth down the flyaway tendrils. When one got up so early makeup was necessary to cover the automatic look of horror and sheer disbelief; she applied it with a fast but lavish hand, going for the glamorous, just-left-a-party look. What she got was closer to a hangover look, but she wasn’t wasting any more time on a hopeless cause.

Don’t wear white or black, the television lady had said. Jaine put on a long, narrow black skirt, figuring the lady had meant to avoid black on her top half, which was what would be seen. She paired a scoop-neck, three-quarter-length-sleeved red sweater with the black skirt, cinched a black belt around her waist, and slipped her feet into black pumps at the same time as she was fastening classic gold hoops in her ears.

She glanced at the clock. Three A.M. Damn, she was good at this!

She would bite her tongue off before she ever admitted it.

Okay, what else? Food and water for BooBoo, who was staying out of sight. Smart kitty, she thought.

That little chore taken care of, she let herself out at five after three. The driveway next door was still empty. No brown Pontiac sat there, nor had she heard any other vehicle enter the driveway during the night. Sam hadn’t come home.

He probably had a girlfriend, she thought, gritting her teeth. Duh! She felt like an idiot. Of course he had a girlfriend. Men like Sam always had a woman or two, or three, on their strings. He hadn’t been able to get anywhere with her, thanks to her lack of birth control, so he had simply buzzed on over to the next flower in line.

“Jerk,” she growled as she got into the Viper. She should have remembered her past experiences in the relationship wars and not let herself get so excited. Evidently her hormones had overruled her common sense and she had become drunk on ovarian wine, the most potent, sanity-destroying substance in the universe. In short, she had taken one look at his naked body and gone into heat.

“Forget about that,” she muttered to herself as she drove the dark, quiet residential streets. “Don’t think about it.” Sure. Like she was going to forget the sight of that joystick of his waving proud and free.

She felt like crying at the thought of having to give up that awe-inspiring, mouthwatering erection when she hadn’t even had a crack at it yet, but pride demanded. She refused to be one of a crowd in a man’s head, much less his bed.

His only excuse, she thought, was if he was lying in a hospital somewhere, too badly injured to dial a telephone. She knew he hadn’t been shot or anything; that would have been in the news, if a cop had been wounded. Mrs. Kulavich would have told her if he’d been in a traffic accident. No, he was alive and well, somewhere. It was the where that was the problem.

Just to cover all bases, she tried to work up a teeny bit of worry over him, but all she could manage was a heartfelt desire to maim him.

She knew better than to lose her head over a man. That was what was so humiliating: she knew better. Three broken engagements had taught her that a woman needed to keep her wits about her when dealing with the male species, or she could get seriously hurt. Sam hadn’t hurt her – not much, anyway – but she had been on the verge of making a really stupid mistake and she hated to think she was so gullible.

Damn him, why couldn’t he at least have called? If she had a lock of his hair, she thought, she could put a curse on him, but she was willing to bet he wouldn’t let her anywhere near him with a pair of scissors.

She entertained herself with thinking up imaginative curses just in case she did manage to get some of his hair. She particularly liked the one that gave him a bad case of wilt. Hah! Let him see how many women were impressed when his joystick became a joyless noodle.

On the other hand, maybe she was overreacting. One kiss did not a relationship make. She had no claim on him, his time, or his erections.

Like hell she didn’t.

Okay, so much for logic. She had to go with her gut feeling here, because it wasn’t allowing room for anything else. Her feelings for Sam were way out of the norm, composed of almost equal parts fury and passion. He could make her angrier, faster, than anyone else she had ever known. He also hadn’t been far off the mark with his assertion that when he kissed her, they would both end up naked. If he had chosen his location better, if they hadn’t been standing in her driveway, she wouldn’t have regained her senses in time to stop him.

While she was being honest with herself, she might as well admit that she was exhilarated by their conflicts. With all three of her fiancés – in fact, with most people – she had held herself back, pulled her verbal punches. She knew she was a smart-ass; Shelley and David had both gone out of their way to tell her so. Her mother had tried to get her to temper her responses and had partially succeeded. All through school she had struggled to keep her mouth shut, because the lightning-quick workings of her brain left her schoolmates bewildered, unable to keep up with her thought processes. Nor did she want to hurt anyone’s feelings, which she had quickly learned she could do just by speaking her mind.

She treasured her friendships with Marci, T.J. and Luna because, as different as they all were, the other three accepted and weren’t intimidated by her more caustic remarks. She felt the same sort of relief in her dealings with Sam, because he was as much of a smart-ass as she was, with the same verbal agility and speed.

She didn’t want to give that up. Once she admitted that, she realized she had two choices: she could walk away, which had been her first inclination, or she could teach him a lesson about… about trifling with her affections, damn it! If there was one thing she didn’t want anyone trifling with, it was her affections. Well, okay, there were two things – she didn’t want anyone trifling with the Viper, either. But Sam… Sam was worth fighting for. If he had other women in his head and bed, then she would simply have to oust them, and make him pay for putting her to the trouble.

There. She felt better now. Her course of action was decided. She arrived at the television station faster than she had anticipated, but then there wasn’t much traffic on the freeways and streets that early in the morning. Luna was already there, climbing out of her white Camaro, looking as fresh and rested as if this were nine in the morning instead of not quite four. She was wearing a gold silk wrap dress that made her cream-and-coffee skin glow.

“This is spooky, isn’t it?” she said when Jaine joined her and they walked to the back door of the station, as they had been instructed.

“Weird,” Jaine agreed. “It’s unnatural for anyone to be awake and functioning at this hour.”

Luna laughed. “I’m certain everyone else on the road was up to no good, because why else would they be out?”

“Drug dealers and perverts, every one of them.”

“Prostitutes.”

“Bank robbers.”

“Murderers and wife-beaters.”

“Television personalities.”

They were still laughing when Marci drove up. As soon as she joined them she said, “Did you see all the weirdos on the street? They must come out at midnight or something.”

“We’ve already had that conversation,” Jaine said, grinning. “I guess it’s safe to say none of us is a party animal, crawling home in the wee hours of the morning.”

“I’ve done my share of crawling,” Marci said cheerfully. “Until I got tired of shoe prints on my hands.” She looked around. “I can’t believe I’m here before T.J.; she’s always early, and I’m usually late.”

“Maybe Galan had a tantrum and told her she couldn’t come,” Luna suggested.

“No, she would have called if she wasn’t coming,” Jaine replied. She checked her watch: five before four. “Let’s go inside. They might have coffee, and I need a steady supply if I’m going to be coherent.”

She had been in a television station before, so Jaine wasn’t surprised by the cavernous space, the darkness, the snaking cables all over the floor. Cameras and lights stood like sentinels over the set, while monitors watched over everything. There were people around, jean-and-sneaker clad, plus one woman wearing a chic peach suit. She came toward them with a bright, professional smile on her face and her hand outstretched.

“Hello, I’m Julia Belotti, with GMA. I assume you’re the Ladies of the List?” She laughed at her own joke as she shook hands all around. “I’ll be doing your interview. But aren’t there four of you?”

Jaine refrained from making a show of counting noses and saying, “No, I think there are only three of us.” That was smartass stuff, the sort she typically held back.

“T.J. is late,” Marci explained.

“T.J. Yother, right?” Ms. Belotti wanted to show she had done her homework. “I know you’re Marci Dean; I caught the local bit that was aired.” She looked at Jaine, her gaze assessing. “You are…?”

“Jaine Bright.”

“The camera is going to love your face,” Ms. Belotti said, then turned with a smile to Luna. “You must be Luna Scissum. I must say, if Ms. Yother is as attractive as the rest of you, this will be a real hit. You do know the buzz your List is getting in New York, don’t you?”

“Not really,” Luna said. “We’re surprised at all the attention it’s been getting.”

“Be sure and say something to that effect when we’re taping,” Ms. Belotti instructed, checking her watch. A tiny frown of annoyance began to pleat her brow; then the door opened and T.J. entered, her hair and makeup flawless, her dress a rich blue that flattered her warm coloring.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, joining the little group. She didn’t offer any excuse, just the apology, and Jaine gave her a sharp look, seeing the fatigue under the makeup. They all had a good reason for looking fatigued, considering the hour, but T.J. had added stress.

“Where is the ladies’ room?” Jaine asked. “I’d like to check my lipstick, if there’s time, then find a cup of coffee if there is any.”

Ms. Belotti laughed. “There’s always coffee in a television station. The ladies’ room is this way.” She directed them down a hallway.

As soon as its door swung shut behind them, everyone turned to T.J. “Are you all right?” Jaine asked.

“If you’re asking about Galan, yeah, I’m all right. I sent him to a motel last night. Of course, he may have called his girlfriend to join him, but that’s his choice.”

“Girlfriend!” Luna echoed, her eyes widening in shock.

“Son of a bitch,” Marci said, leaving it to T.J. to decide if she was calling Galan that or just using it as an expletive.

Jaine said, “He doesn’t have much leverage now to use against you on this list thing, does he?”

T.J. laughed. “None, and he knows it.” She looked at their concerned faces. “Hey, I’m okay. If he wants out of the marriage, I’d rather know now before I waste more time trying to keep things going. Once I decided that, I stopped worrying.”

“How long has he been having an affair?” Marci asked.

“He swears he isn’t, that he hasn’t been physically unfaithful. Ask me if I believe that.”

“Oh, sure,” Jaine said. “I believe the sun rises in the west, too.”

“He might be telling the truth,” Luna put in.

“Possible, but not likely,” Marci said with the voice of experience. “Whatever they admit to is only the tip of the iceberg. It’s human nature.”

T.J. checked her lipstick. “I don’t think it makes much difference. If he’s in love with someone else, then what does it matter whether or not he’s slept with her? Anyway, forget about him. I am; if there’s any making up to do, he’ll have to be the one to do it. I’m going to play this list thing up as big as it’ll get. And if there’s any sort of book offer, I say we go for it. We might as well get some money for all the trouble we’ve been through.”

“Amen to that,” Marci said, and added, “Brick left. His feelings were hurt.”

They gaped at that, trying to imagine Brick with feelings.

“If he doesn’t come back,” she complained, “I’ll have to do the dating thing again. Man, I hate the thought of that. Going out dancing, letting men buy me drinks… it’s awful.”

They were laughing as they left the ladies’ room. Ms. Belotti was waiting for them. She directed them to the coffee urn, where someone had procured four mugs for them. “We have a small set ready for taping whenever you get settled,” she said, a subtle way of telling them to shut up and sit down. “The soundman needs to get you miked and sound-checked, and the lighting has to be adjusted. If you’ll come this way…”

Their purses were stashed out of sight, and coffee mugs in hand, they settled on a set decorated to look like a cozy living room, with a sofa and two easy chairs, a couple of fake ferns, a discreet lamp that wasn’t turned on. A guy who looked about twenty years old began attaching tiny microphones to them. Ms. Belotti clipped on her own microphone to the lapel of her jacket.

None of them had been intelligent enough to wear a jacket. Luna’s gold wrap dress was okay, as was the collar-bone slamming neckline of T.J.’s dress. Marci wore a sleeveless, mock-turtleneck sweater, which meant the only place the microphone could be attached was right on her throat. She would have to be very careful moving her head or the resulting noise would blot out everything else. Then the soundman looked at Jaine’s red scoop-neck sweater, and said, “Uh-oh.”

Jaine grinned and held out her hand. “I’ll clip it on. Do you want it to the side or right in the middle?”

He grinned back at her. “I’d like it right in the middle, thanks.”

“No flirting,” she admonished as she slipped the mike under her sweater and clipped it to her neckline, between her breasts. “It’s too early.”

“I’ll be good.” With a wink, he taped the cord to her side, then returned to his equipment. “Okay, I need all of you to talk, one at a time, so I can check the sound.”

Ms. Belotti began an easy conversation, asking if they were all from the Detroit area. When the sound was duly checked and the cameras were set, Ms. Belotti looked at the producer, who then did the countdown, pointed to her, and she went smoothly into the lead-in comments about the famous – “or infamous, depending on your point of view” – List that had swept the country and was being discussed over breakfast tables in every state. Then she introduced them in turn, and said, “Do any of you have a Mr. Perfect in your lives?”

They all laughed. If only she knew!

Luna nudged Jaine’s knee with her own. Taking the cue, Jaine said, “No one is perfect. We joked at the time that the list is really science fiction.”

“Science fiction or not, people are taking it seriously.”

“That’s up to them,” Marci put in. “The qualities we listed are our ideas of what would make the perfect man. A group of four other women would probably come up with different qualities, or list them in a different order.”

“You do know that feminist groups are outraged at the physical and sexual requirements on the List. When women have struggled so long not to be judged by their looks or bust size, they feel you have damaged their position by judging men according to their physical attributes.”

Luna raised one perfect eyebrow. “I thought part of the feminist movement was to give women the freedom to be honest about what they want. We listed what we want. We were honest.” This line of questioning was her cup of tea; she thought political correctness was an abomination and never hesitated to say so.

“We also never thought the List would become public,” T.J. put in. “Its release was accidental.”

“You would have been less honest if you had known the List would be published?”

“No,” Jaine cracked. “We would have upped the requirements.” What the hell; why not have fun with it, as T.J. had suggested?

“You said you didn’t have a Mr. Perfect in your life,” Ms. Belotti said smoothly. “Do you have a man at all?”

Well, that little dig had been slipped in with the ease of an expert, Jaine thought, wondering if the slant of the interview was to paint them as women who couldn’t keep a man. Grinning a little, she had to admit that, given all their circumstances, the slant was pretty damn accurate. But if Ms. Belotti wanted a little controversy, why not give it to her? “Not really,” she said. “Not many men can measure up.”

Marci and T.J. laughed. Luna restricted herself to a smile. From offstage came a quickly smothered snicker.

Ms. Belotti turned to T.J. “I understand you’re the only one of the group who is married, Ms. Yother. What does your husband think about the List?”

“Not much,” T.J. admitted cheerfully. “Any more than I liked it when he would turn around to ogle large breasts.”

“So this is a bit of tit for tat?”

Too late she realized her choice of words wasn’t the best in the world. “More tit than tat,” Marci said gravely. Good thing the interview was taped instead of live.

“The thing is,” Luna said, “most of the requirements are qualities all people should have. Number one was faithfulness, remember? If you’re in a relationship, you should be faithful. Period.”

“I’ve read the entire article about the List, and, if you’re honest, you’ll admit that most of your conversation wasn’t about the qualities of faithfulness or dependability. The most intense discussion was about a man’s physical characteristics.”

“We were having fun,” Jaine said calmly. “And we aren’t crazy; of course we want men who look good to us.”

Ms. Belotti checked her notes. “In the article, you aren’t identified by name. You’re listed as A, B, C, and D. Which of you is A?”

“We don’t intend to divulge that,” Jaine said. Beside her, she felt Marci straighten a little.

“People are very interested in who said what,” Marci said. “I’ve had anonymous phone calls asking which one I am.”

“So have I,” T.J. put in. “But we aren’t going to say. Our opinions weren’t unanimous; one might have felt more strongly about a particular point than the other three did. We want to protect our privacy on that front.”

Another poor choice of words. When their laughter died down, Ms. Belotti turned once more to the personal. “Are you dating anyone?” she asked Luna.

“No one exclusively.” Take that, Shamal.

She looked at Marci. “And you?”

“Not at the moment.” Take that, Brick.

“So only Ms. Yother is in a relationship. Do you think this means you might be too exacting in your requirements?”

“Why should we lower our standards?” Jaine asked, eyes flashing, and the interview went downhill from there.

“God, I’m sleepy,” T.J. said, yawning, when they left the studio at six-thirty. Ms. Belotti had plenty of material to edit down for the short piece that would actually be aired. At one point she had abandoned her notes and passionately argued the feminist point of view. Jaine doubted any morning television show could use even a fraction of what had been said, but the studio crew had been fascinated.

Whatever was used, it was supposed to be aired next Monday. Maybe then all the interest would die down. After all, how long could the List be discussed? People had lives to lead, and the List had already long outlived its allotted fifteen minutes.

“Those phone calls worry me a little,” Marci said, frowning at the bright, cloudless morning sky. “People are weird. You never know whose chain we’re pulling.”

Jaine knew one person whose chain she hoped to pull. If some of what she had said was aired, Sam would probably take it as a personal challenge. She certainly hoped he did – because that was exactly how she had meant it.