Rand groaned with pleasure and gripped her tightly, sliding his hands along her slender curves. When he finally tore his mouth from hers, he pressed it against the sensitive arch of her throat.
“I want you so much, Jamie. Let me have you. Come home with me tonight.” He closed his eyes as a fierce spasm of need spun through him. “I can’t wait any longer, baby. You’re driving me out of my mind.”
The force of his impassioned words brought her back to her senses. “No, Rand.” Jamie was alarmed. Not only couldn’t she trust him, she couldn’t trust herself, either! She knew that her willpower increased in direct proportion to her distance from his arms. Swiftly, she slipped from his embrace to stand several feet away from him.
“Jamie, you know you want me.” He knew he sounded a bit desperate, but he didn’t care. He was desperate. “Sweetheart, it’ll be so good between us. I’ll make you feel things you’ve never felt before.”
“And then what, Rand?” Her blue eyes flashed fire. “After we’ve gone to bed and you’ve made me feel things I’ve never felt before, what then?”
Rand stared down at her, his expression bemused. He’d always prided himself on his quick wit and facility with words. He was a right-brained person, one of his exgirlfriends who’d read all about such things had once told him. But the clever right side of his brain seemed to be temporarily immobilized. At this moment, all he was capable of doing was to gaze at Jamie with passion-glazed eyes and echo: “What then?”
“You haven’t thought beyond getting me into bed,” Jamie exclaimed, angry with him and even more angry with herself for succumbing so completely to his kisses.
“That’s a loaded question.” Rand’s right brain was functioning enough to realize that.
“It’s not a question, it’s a statement of fact. You want to go to bed with me.”
“From the moment I laid eyes on you,” Rand confessed huskily.
She thrilled to his admission and at the same time seethed with anger at his shallow, short-term expectations. Never had she felt so ambivalent. “You’re sexually attracted to me, but you’re not in love with me,” she accused. Yet the romantic within her yearned for him to swear that he’d fallen in love with her at first sight while the realist inside proclaimed he’d be lying if he did.
“How could I be in love with you?” He gave his head an exasperated shake. “For God’s sake, Jamie, we hardly know each other!”
Uh-oh! Rand grimaced. If he were a character in a cartoon strip, a light bulb would be drawn over his head. He laughed slightly, without mirth. “The very point you were trying to make, of course. But you led me into making it myself.”
Jamie took her raincoat from him and shrugged into it without saying a word. Rand watched her. Her fingers trembled a little as she fastened the belt. She looked small and vulnerable and incredibly desirable. Unable to stop himself, he reached out to stroke her cheek with the palm of his hand.
“Is it so important to you that your lovers be in love with you before they take you to bed?”
He felt a peculiar sting at the thought of Jamie falling madly in love with other men and subsequently permitting them to make love to her. The sting increased to a full-fledged pang at the image of her lying naked and aroused in bed, opening her arms to one of those nameless, faceless males in her past. He felt shaken, confused. Until now, sexual jealousy had been unknown to him.
“Obviously, being in love with your lovers and having them in love with you isn’t one of your top priorities.” It took effort to keep her voice cool, but Jamie succeeded.
“You’re making this far more complicated than it is, Jamie,” he complained. “It’s really very simple, very basic. We want each other and we’re both consenting adults. True, after meeting your grandmother, I can understand your reluctance to skip off blithely with a stranger. She’s compiled a body count that’s downright chilling. But surely you know by now that I’m hardly the type to abduct you and rape you.”
“And leave my corpse in a wooded area to be stumbled over by some poor innocent dog and its owner on their daily walk?” Jamie put in, her eyes agleam.
Rand tried and failed to suppress a swift grin. “We’re getting as macabre as your grandmother. Do you think it could be catching?” Remembering the topic at hand he frowned, his eyes narrowing with determination. “Don’t change the subject, Jamie. We were talking about you and me and why we should—”
“I can see that seduction is serious business to you with no time out to joke or kid around,” Jamie interrupted again. “Well, here’s my answer to your offer for quick, emotion-free, involvement-free sex. No, thank you.”
“It wouldn’t be quick.” He gave a sharklike smile. “Believe me, honey, I’ve never had any complaints in that department.”
Without another word, she walked away from him. “Jamie, come back here,” Rand called after her, his voice rising in frustration. “You can’t expect me to keep chasing after you.”
“I don’t.” She slowed her pace and turned around. “I expect you to move on to your next successful conquest. That’s exactly what Steve would do. Because when everything always comes easily, you resent having to put special time or effort into anything that doesn’t. So you don’t bother, you only take what’s easy.”
That struck a nerve. Rand did the only thing he could do when feeling defensive. He seized the offense. “One of the things I hate most is being compared to the other men in a woman’s past. Another is having to hear pat analyses of my character.” And then, because he couldn’t stand it, he asked. “Who’s Steve?”
“My brother. You’d know that if you’d bothered to listen to me, but you haven’t because you’re not interested in learning anything about me or my life and the people in it. All you want from me is sex.”
“Not again!” Rand groaned. “We’ve already had this conversation, Jamie. We’re going in circles.”
“That’s because nothing’s changed and nothing is going to change. I don’t want to be rushed and you want to rush me into bed. We’re at a hopeless impasse.”
“And you don’t want to be rushed,” Rand muttered. “What do you want? A courtship or something?”
“You said courtship with the same repugnance that a temperance league member must’ve used to say liquor,” Jamie said dryly, unable to suppress a smile. “But I happen to like the idea of a nice, old-fashioned courtship, and I’m going to hold out for one. Not with you,” she added quickly. She took a deep, steadying breath. Though it hurt, she was determined to face reality. “We’d never work out. We’re on two totally different wavelengths.”
“To say the least,” Rand agreed quickly, too quickly. Jamie fought back the pain of his speedy dismissal. It was for the best, she insisted to herself as she resumed walking.
To stop her, Rand knew that he’d have to promise more than he felt like giving. And he didn’t want to; he didn’t have the time or the inclination. A courtship? Dammit, he wouldn’t do it. Why would he want to court—what a foppish word!—a demanding, stubborn woman with hopelessly outdated values and a will of iron? Jamie Saraceni would cheerfully and unapologetically turn his life upside down—it was at half-tilt already, thanks to her.
Rand frowned. He liked his life—life-style, according to the mercenary little Saran—exactly the way it was. Or the way it had been before he’d made his first fateful trip to the Merlton Library.
He jammed his hands deep into his pockets and watched Jamie reenter the gym. For a few moments, he stood in the empty corridor, then strode purposefully to the main entrance of the school.
Six
He was standing near the door a half hour later when the program ended and the crowds began to emerge. Grandma and Saran spotted him before Jamie did. At least, they acknowledged him first.
“Hello there, Rand,” Grandma called loudly as the three worked their way through the crowd.
He waved to her, noting that somewhere between the beginning and end of the program the Saraceni matriarch
had relegated him to first-name status. But if he was making progress with the grandmother, it was all downhill with her granddaughter. Jamie didn’t even glance in his direction.
“Before we leave, we’ll have to tell Maureen and A1 that Jamie, Saran and I are going to your house to check on your kitten,” Grandma announced.
“I see them, Grandma. I’ll tell them and be right back,” called Saran. She blazed her way through the crowd with the finesse of a bulldozer.
Old Mrs. Saraceni had included herself and Saran in the invitation he had issued exclusively to Jamie, noted Rand. He should’ve been aghast. Instead, he felt relieved. He knew that Jamie had no intention of going to his house; now her grandmother had taken the decision out of her hands. For the first time ever, he viewed a woman’s family members as something other than an annoying hindrance.
Grandma continued to elbow her way through the throng of people, finally giving Jamie a shove that propelled her to land directly in front of Rand. He reflexively put his hands on her waist to steady her.
He didn’t want to remove them, even when it became obvious that she didn’t need steadying. He wanted to touch her, to keep her close. He’d spent the last half hour fighting an internal civil war about whether to stay or leave. Though he was still here, he didn’t know if he’d won or lost the war.
“Rand’s changed his mind, Grandma,” Jamie said, removing herself from his grip while carefully averting her eyes from his. “He doesn’t want us to go with him. Come on, we’ll catch a ride home with Mom and Dad.”
“There’s no need to refer to me in the third person,” Rand inserted archly. “I’m perfectly capable of speaking for myself. I do want you to go with me. I’m quite concerned about the cat. I want to make sure everything I bought for him is right.”
“Right,” Grandma repeated dryly. She looked from Rand to Jamie, rolled her eyes and shook her head.
Rand’s sleek stucco and tile house was a radical departure from the brick colonials and wooden gingerbread-style houses that comprised most of the architecture in Haddon-field. It was located at the end of a cul-de-sac on two acres of ground landscaped with tall pines, shrubs and an assortment of flowering bushes not yet in bloom.
He pulled the car into the long circular driveway and pressed the button of his automatic garage door opener. The heavy door glided open and he drove the Jaguar inside, parking it next to a midnight-blue Ferrari Testarossa.
“You have two of the most excellent cars I’ve ever seen!” exclaimed Saran. “I can’t wait to tell Steve about them.”
“Steve,” Rand repeated. “Your cousin. Jamie’s brother.” He cast a triumphant glance at Jamie, who hadn’t spoken to him during the entire drive to Haddonfield.
“You see, I do listen to you, Jamiie,” Rand added righteously, in case she’d missed the significance of his observation.
Jamie had no comment. She deliberately remained silent as Rand led them through a passage from the garage to the house. But her first sight of Rand’s living room rendered her truly incapable of speech. She’d never seen a room quite like this one. It was the size of a gymnasium, all black and white, chrome and Lucite. A huge metal sculpture—at least she assumed it was supposed to be a sculpture and not a bicycle wreck—was hung on one stark white wall.
There were no lamps. Track lighting illuminated certain areas of the room. Her eyes flicked from the floor-to-ceiling windows that comprised one wall to the black leather upholstery on the low-slung furniture,, if the collection of backless, armless and legless circles, squares and rectangles could be called furniture.
“Is the whole house like this?” Jamie managed at last. Grandma and Saran were still staring around the enormous room, looking as awestruck as Dorothy on her arrival in Oz.
Rand nodded. “I think Debbie—she was the decorator—called it minimalism. I told her I wanted something different, and she came up with this.”
“Different doesn’t quite describe it,” drawled Jamie. Debbie. She pictured a platinum blonde, size 38-D, poured into a leopard print jumpsuit made of spandex; a bombshell who slithered over the leather banquettes when she wasn’t slithering all over Rand.
“Minimalism,” Grandma muttered. “I guess I can see where that came from. Minimal color, minimal comfort, minimal taste—at maximum prices, of course.”
“Yeah.” Saran grinned. “This place looks like a video of a bad dream.”
Reebok, drawn by the sound of voices, chose that moment to make his entrance. His tiny paws skidded on the smooth black tile floor, and he slid into one of the thick white shag rugs. He arched his back and hissed ferociously at the rug, then attacked it on a leap.
“Even the cat’s black and white,” observed Grandma. “Lucky for him, he fits right in with the color scheme.” Rand shrugged, grinning. “I can see you’re all underwhelmed with the decor. I can’t say I like it much either, but I’ve gotten used to it.”
“How long have you lived here, Rand?” asked Saran. “A year.” Though ostensibly he was answering Saran, his attention was fixed on Jamie. She was staring at the black and white ceramic logs in the black faux marble fireplace. “I had an apartment in New York for years and finally got tired of the pace and the hassles of living in a city that size.” “Ah, a midlife crisis victim, though yours hit earlier than most,” Grandma said knowledgeably. “I’ve watched plenty of them tell their stories on TV. You needed a complete change. Next thing, you’ll wake up sick of being single.” She cast a shrewd black-eyed gaze on Jamie. “You’ll want to get married.”
“And hire a new decorator,” added Saran.
Rand shifted uneasily. He still had trouble understanding his feelings of discontent with the city life he’d once thrived on. But he certainly didn’t care for Grandma Sara-ceni’s diagnosis. “I positively refuse to classify a simple desire for life in a smaller, less hectic town as a midlife anything! I’ve never gone in for conventional angst, and I’m not about to start now. Some friends in the Philadelphia area recommended Haddonfield to me. I saw it, liked it and moved here.”
He was getting bored with the conversation. Never had he felt less like talking about himself. He felt restless and on edge; he wanted action, excitement. He wanted sex. His light brown eyes focused longingly on Jamie’s lovely profile. Since action, excitement and sex were out, he would settle for a private conversation with her. As one who seldom chose to compromise, Rand deliberately avoided examining his sudden talent for it.
“Everything I bought for the kitten is in the kitchen. Would you look over it, Mrs. Saraceni?” he asked, lacing his tone with respectful deference. “Jamie, may I have a word with you? Privately?”
“Of course, of course,” said Grandma benevolently. “Saran, bring that cat into the kitchen with me.”
The moment they left the room, Jamie turned to Rand. “What’s the point?” she asked wearily.
“I want you to define courtship,” Rand cut in swiftly. “Dinner dates? Movies? Miniature golf games? Good-night kisses on the doorstep with the porch light shining in our faces? Those sorts of things?”
“If you’re trying to make it seem juvenile and ridiculous—”
“I’ve succeeded?”
“You really are a rich man,” Jamie said suddenly, distracting him with her seeming non sequitur. “When you said you were earlier, I wondered if you were lying. Now I’m sure you’re not. The cars, this house, are proof of that. So I have to ask what kind of game you’re playing, Rand Marshall.” “Game?” he repeated, stalling for time. Did he dare risk telling her about his Brick Lawson pseudonym and success?
“You’re not an insurance claims adjuster.” Her eyes flashed. “You lied about that. And I can’t help but wonder what else you’ve lied about. Why did you come to the Merlton Library, Rand? This time I want the truth.”
“Did growing up among your grandmother’s police gazettes account for your suspicious, investigative bent of mind?” he asked lightly. There was a certain irony in being highly paid as a master
storyteller but bungling the tale he’d spun for Jamie, he decided wryly. If only he’d had an editor on hand to point out the gaping holes in his plot.
Now the question was: How much could he tell her without permanently alienating her? “You’re right, I don’t work for an insurance company,” he began carefully. “I only said I did because I needed a plausible explanation for being in Merlton. The real reason I came to the library was to see you.” He kept his eyes fixed on her face, gauging her reaction.
If the tense set of her jaw, her clenched fingers and snapping blue eyes were correct indicators, her reaction to his partial confession wasn’t favorable.
“Why did you want to see me? You don’t even know me.” She glared at him, anger coursing through her. “I want you to be honest with me, Rand Marshall. Do you have a sister who made the unfortunate mistake of falling in love with my brother Steve? Did you come seeking revenge because Steve dumped her? Did you decide that the way to get back at Steve was to make his sister fall for you and then break her heart?”
“Are you crazy? Of course not!” Rand gaped at her incredulously. “I don’t even have a sister. Your revenge scheme is a plot straight out of daytime television, Jamie. People don’t do things like that in real life.”
“Oh, yes, they do,” Jamie said grimly.
His eyes widened. “You mean it’s actually happened to you? The irate brother of one of your brother’s rejectees attempted some romance revenge? Using you?” It sickened him to think of Jamie being used, being hurt. No wonder she was so cautious, so mistrustful...
Jamie nodded her head. “Believe it or not, it’s happened twice, two years apart. Eric Crenshaw and Richard Aldero. Oh, I’ll never forget those wolves in sheep’s clothing. Both were brothers of women who were foolish enough to think that Steve would eventually make a commitment to them.
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