Angela seemed to crumple in her seat. Her three friends exchanged dismayed glances. “Some birthday present. Poor Angela,” Romaine whispered to Jamie, who nodded glumly.
Rand followed Daniel and the two willowy blondes, his date and Daniel’s, to a booth in the corner of the restaurant. After placing their orders, the women excused themselves to go to “the little girls’ room.”
Rand cringed at the euphemism. His date irritated him immensely, although he conceded that it wasn’t really her fault. He acknowledged that she was sexy, attractive and desirable; furthermore, she’d made it plain that she was available and quite willing to further their acquaintance. There was a time when he would have been eager to take her up on what she was offering.
But not now. Tonight, he was restless, bored and distracted. He was not being charming or attentive to his beauteous blind date. His thoughts were all of Jamie Saraceni, who had not only infiltrated his mind, but seemed to have taken it over completely. He could hardly wait for this evening to end; he wanted to drop off his date and call Jamie, no matter how late the hour. He wanted it to be tomorrow night when he would see Jamie again and take her into his arms and— “Hey, there’s Angela Kelso! She’s the dental hygienist at my office.” Daniel’s voice roused Rand from his reverie. “I should go over there and say hello. It’s her birthday today, and I forgot to mention it to her.” He frowned, his eyes mirroring regret. “I meant to get her a card, but then Shelli called.”
Daniel stood, then gave a low whistle. “Damn! Jamie Saraceni is here, too. She’s sitting at the table with Angela.”
Rand bolted from his seat. “Where?”
Daniel pointed out the four young women at the table across the room. “Jamie’s the black-haired one, sitting next to Angela, who’s the one with the light brown hair.”
Rand squinted. Though he certainly knew Jamie, he played dumb. “There are two girls with light brown hair at that table.”
“Angela is the one that’s, uh, slightly overweight. She’s really a great girl,” Daniel added quickly. “She’s my right arm at the office. Rand, come over to the table with me. I want to say hello to Angela but I’m not thrilled with the prospect of facing Jamie Saraceni. Not after the way she, uh, uh...”
“Ground your ego into the dust?” Rand suggested dryly. Daniel scowled. “I bet you can’t get any farther with her than I did. In fact, I dare you to try.”
Rand shrugged uncomfortably. As much as he wanted to see Jamie, he did not want it to be under these circumstances. He was here with a date, and he wasn’t eager to have Jamie find that out. Those odd feelings he’d been having all evening, of being disloyal to Jamie, of being unfaithful to her, returned in full measure, and he couldn’t seem to banish them. “Look, I’ll just stay here at the table and wait for Shelli and Maxi to come back.”
“They won’t be back for a long time. Look at that line!” Daniel gave Rand a friendly shove. “C’mon, Marshall. Are you afraid to face the fact that Jamie Saraceni won’t give you the time of day, either?”
Rand grinned. He couldn’t help himself. “Oh, she’ll give me the time of day, all right.” Remembering her impassioned responses to his kisses, his smile broadened. She’d already given him a lot more!
“I’d like to see you prove that.” There was a conspiratorial glint in Daniel’s eyes. “I’ll even sweeten the incentive. A weekend this summer at my time-share condo in Cape May if you get a date with her.”
“Are you crazy? A bet? This is real life, not some dumb TV sitcom, Wilcox.”
“Ml raise the stakes even higher. If you get her into bed, you can have the condo over the Fourth of July weekend, the biggest weekend at the shore. Hey, I think they’ve spotted us. Let’s go.” Daniel propelled Rand through the throng on the small makeshift dance floor, around the bar, to the table where Jamie and her friends were sitting.
“He’s coming this way, Angie!” Charlene said excitedly. “Now act cool. Don’t melt into a puddle at his feet.” Jamie’s chair was facing the wall, rendering her unable to witness Daniel Wilcox’s advance firsthand. But Charlene reported that the dentist was not alone; he was being accompanied by a male friend with “to-die-for” good looks.
Was there a patron saint of dating? Jamie wondered nervously. If so, please let Daniel Wilcox be nice to Angela and not slaver all over me, she silently implored.
“Happy birthday, Angela!” Daniel’s jovial tones echoed around the table. “I bet you thought I forgot! Wrong! I have a card to give you on Monday.”
“Oh, thank you, Daniel,” Angela said in breathless euphoric tones.
“Why don’t you introduce my friend Rand Marshall to your friends here,” Daniel continued, grinning slyly.
Jamie whirled around in her chair to meet the deep golden eyes of Rand Marshall. For a moment, she was too astonished to speak, and by the time she recovered, Angela had already made the introductions.
“Do I get a dance with the birthday girl?” Daniel asked Angela in that slick, unctuous way of his. But Angela blushed with pleasure and quickly stood up. “Rand, why don’t you ask Jamie to dance?” Daniel continued in those same cloying tones.
Rand looked at Jamie and raised his brows. Jamie rose from her chair and allowed him to lead her onto the small, crowded dance floor.
“Look at the expression on Wilcox’s face.” Rand laughed softly as he drew her into his arms to dance. “He thinks we just met, and he can’t understand why you’d consent to dance with me when you wouldn’t even give him your phone number.”
“Look at the expression on Angela’s face,” Jamie said soberly, watching the other couple slow dance. “She looks positively enraptured. If only she’d realize what an undeserving creep Daniel Wilcox really is.”
“Daniel’s not that bad.” Rand proprietarily placed her arms around his neck, then clasped his own hands tightly around her waist. She felt small and soft against him. Her arms were locked around his neck, her body pressed tightly to his, her legs slightly apart to accommodate the fullness of his swiftly hardening masculinity. A deep shudder of need shook him. “I never expected to run into you here tonight, Jamie.”
She felt his response and her heart began to thud as*a liquid heat throbbed inside her. “I didn’t expect to run into you, either,” she murmured huskily. But, oh, she was glad that she had!
“We’re still on for tomorrow night, aren’t we?” He brushed his lips against the silken texture of her hair. One big hand slipped lower to hold her intimately against him.
“Are we?” Jamie’s voice shook. The sensations he was evoking within her were so intense they were dizzying. “I wasn’t sure, after the way you stomped out of the library earlier this afternoon.” She smiled, suddenly able to see the humor in it, though she’d been upset at the time by his abrupt departure. “You accused me of being like that nasty Martha Elizabeth creature who plagued your school days. I was never the class commandant, Rand, honest.” She drew back a little and smiled at him.
“I can believe that.” He grinned. “You were probably the prom queen.”
She laughed at that. “Me? Not hardly. I was just a quiet girl who studied hard and spent most of my spare time at my job. I was a paid library aide in Cherry Hill from the time I was fifteen.”
“And that’s when you decided to become a librarian,” he concluded.
Jamie nodded. “I love reading and books and I love every moment I spend in the library.” She paused and her eyes sparkled. “Well, almost every moment. There have been a certain few I could do without.”
“Just as there are a certain few books you could do without,” Rand said carefully, testing the waters. “All of Brick Lawson’s, for example.”
Jamie laughed. “How true! To quote a literary sage: That isn’t writing, it’s typing!”
The metaphorical waters were definitely too chilly to risk exposure, Rand decided. He’d just begun to nibble on her neck when the music abruptly ended. The band announced that they were taking a break, and couple
s moved slowly from the packed dance floor.
Rand made no motion to leave, and Jamie stared at him expectantly. Those eyes of hers were so expressive, he could almost read her thoughts. She was waiting for him to suggest joining her and her friends; driving her home later would naturally follow. If only he’d come to Darby’s without a date! Unfortunately, he hadn’t.
He cleared his throat. “I’d like to offer you a ride home tonight,” he began.
“Thank you,” Jamie replied at once. “My friend Ro-maine drove tonight so she can take Charlene and Angela home.”
“You didn’t let me finish, honey. I said I’d like to offer you a ride home tonight. But I can’t.”
“Oh.” Jamie studied the tiled floor.
“I’m here with a date,” Rand finished baldly.
Her eyes flew to his face, and her cheeks turned crimson. With humiliation for setting herself up for the fall she’d just taken, courtesy of Rand Marshall’s announcement. And with sheer, unadulterated rage. She was jealous! Jamie realized with horror and pure fury. Never had she felt such wild, searing anger. For the first time in her life she felt possessive of a man, and the throes of sexual jealousy were the result. She hated it; she hated him.
“Fine,” she said tautly, walking away from him. “Then go back to your date.”
Rand sighed and reached out to catch her hand, jerking her back to him. “Here we go again. How many times are you going to stalk off in a snit and how many times am I going to have to drag you back and calm you down?” “Don’t bother! Just let go of my hand and—”
“I asked you out for tonight, Jamie, but you turned me down. And I don’t recall the two of us signing any exclu-sionist contract.”
Her first reaction was defensive. “For your information, I don’t have snits!” Followed by a counteroffensive. “And I think you have a lot of gall to dance with me like that when you’re here with another woman!”
“I wish I weren’t here with another woman. I wanted to be with you tonight, Jamie. It’s your choice that I’m not.” What could she say now? Jamie wondered vexedly. It was true. Furthermore, he was absolutely right. They hadn’t even tacitly mentioned limiting their company exclusively to each other. She pulled her hand free. There was no argument she could present, much as she wanted to. “I want to rejoin my friends now. And I’m sure your date is waiting for you.”
Although she’d broken their physical contact, his glittering eyes held her captive. “Do you want me to dump my date here and now? I could arrange for Daniel to take both women home. Then you could be with me.”
Jamie fought back a dizzying surge of triumph. She felt a primitive sense of victory in having him claim her, over and in spite of, another woman. This had certainly never happened to her before, especially since Jamie avoided triangles as firmly as she avoided rakes, rogues and superficial charm boys.
But her well-ordered mind quickly took charge of the reckless elation bubbling through her. She was not in competition with Rand’s date, and he was not a trophy to be won, she reminded herself. And she knew herself well enough to realize that her momentary glee would inevitably give way to guilt.
“Don’t dump your date,” she said, sighing resignedly. “It wouldn’t be fair to her. My brother Steve does things like that, and I’ve never approved.”
“And you won’t bend your principles, even to suit your own purposes,” Rand concluded thoughtfully. “That’s... admirable.”
“I can do without your sarcasm,” Jamie snapped. “You’ve made it very clear that you think rules are made to be broken!”
“I wasn’t being sarcastic. And there’s a difference between rules, values and principles.” He gave a world-weary, self-mocking smile. “Not that I adhere to any, of course.”
She stared at him. He didn’t sound as if he were bragging. His tone wasn’t flippant and his eyes... She gazed into their depths. She couldn’t identify what she saw there, but she did know it wasn’t bravado or self-satisfaction.
Daniel Wilcox chose that moment to join them, having already escorted Angela to her table. “C’mon, Marsh. We’d better get back to Shelli and Maxi,” he said purposefully, glancing from Rand to Jamie with narrowed eyes. “They’re aspiring models down from New York, auditioning for a lingerie ad to be shot in Philadelphia,” he added, directing this comment to Jamie with a smug smile.
“I’m impressed,” she said flatly. Privately, she congratulated herself on having the good taste to have never considered, even for a moment, a date with Daniel Wilcox.
“I’ll see you tomorrow night, Jamie,” Rand said, and his voice was firm, daring her to challenge him.
She didn’t. “Good night, Rand,” she said coolly and walked to the table where Romaine, Charlene and Angela were eagerly awaiting her.
“Tomorrow? You have a date with her tomorrow?” Daniel croaked and launched into an impassioned soliloquy. “That means you’ve won a weekend at my condo this summer! How did you do it? What did you say to her? How come she’ll go out with you and not me? Damn, I never thought... What if you get her into bed? I have plans for the Fourth of July weekend, Rand! It’s my annual saturnalia!” he ended on a half-wail.
Rand glanced at him, thoroughly astonished by the distaste and disapproval flowing through him. This was the first time he’d ever viewed Daniel’s superficial approach to life and to women as anything different from his own. He didn’t understand it, but he realized that either he was changing or Daniel was.
And when Rand went home alone that night, leaving Daniel with two amorous, inebriated, sexy young women, Rand had to face the fact that it wasn’t Daniel who’d undergone any kind of transformation. It was himself.
March weather was always unpredictable, and the temperature on St. Patrick’s Day shot up to an amazing, unseasonable seventy-five degrees. Rand put aside the green sweater he’d planned to wear to the Blarney Stone and settled for a dark green knit polo shirt. It was still warm and a balmy breeze was blowing lightly when he arrived at the Saraceni’s door promptly at eight o’clock.
“Come in, come in!” Grandma Saraceni greeted him warmly, taking his arm and pulling him inside. She was wearing a black dress, but had pinned a green plastic shamrock to its bodice in tribute to the Irish saint. Saran, wearing a blindingly bright lime-green T-shirt and shorts, stood behind the old woman.
“No flowers or candy?” Saran surveyed him with disapproval. “Nothing at all?”
“Saran, run upstairs and tell Jamie her young man is here,” Grandma instructed firmly. “And tell her to hurry up.”
Saran shrugged and sauntered off.
“You come with me and I’ll introduce you to Jamie’s mother and father while you’re waiting for Jamie.” The old woman took Rand’s arm and pulled him along after her, introducing him to Maureen, a pretty woman with delicate features, dark hair and deep blue eyes like Jamie’s.
“Cassie, Brandon and Timmy aren’t here. They went out for a pizza and a movie. But you can meet them next time,” Maureen told him with a bright, friendly smile. She was dressed all in green and was sitting at the kitchen table, taking cash from a cigar box and arranging the bills in piles, the coins in paper rolls. A big, black cat leaped onto the table and tried to fit himself into the cigar box. Maureen laughed and kept on counting.
“Money from the doll show,” Grandma Saraceni said, following the direction of Rand’s gaze. “Remember those dolls’ heads you dropped off at the community center? Maureen sold every one. Along with some dolls, too, of course.”
Next he was introduced to Jamie’s dad, Al Saraceni, whom Grandma proudly described as “my son, the master carpenter.”
“Rand, you look like a fellow who likes a glass of wine now and then,” Al said expansively. A commercial jingle extolling the virtues of a certain brand of soap blasted from the TV. The Siamese cat was sprawled on top of the set, sleeping soundly.
“You don’t mix drinking with driving, do you?” Grandma interjected quickly, her dark eyes piercing.
Rand glanced from one to the other, uncertain how to answer either of them. Were these trick questions, leading into some sort of trap?
While Grandma quoted accident statistics involving alcohol, Al presented him with a bottle of wine. It had a handwritten label pasted on it.
“For you. Saraceni Sour Cherry Wine.” Al beamed. “Wine making is one of my hobbies. I grow the fruit in my garden and have a wine press set up downstairs in the basement. Take it home and enjoy it.”
“Drink it when you’re at home and plan on staying there,” Grandma added darkly. “We don’t need any more maniacs out there on the highways.”
A loud, sharp blast of a car horn sounded above the traffic noises from the nearby highway. “It’s Todd. See you later!” called Saran from the front of the house.
“Midnight, Saran,” Al shouted back.
“Uncle Al! The party won’t break up till at least two o’clock!” howled Saran. “You don’t want me to be the first one to leave.”
“We’ll leave the porch light on and wait up for you, dear,” sang out Maureen. “See you at midnight.”
Saran gave a shriek of disgust and slammed out of the house.
Rand contrasted the room-to-room shouting to the hushed, modulated tones in the Marshall household. Despite the fierceness of the “conflict of opinions”—Marshalls never quarreled, of course—voices or hands were never raised. Disapproval, Marshall-style, was expressed by cold, relentless silence. He was certain that wasn’t the case here.
Rand shifted uneasily. “What happens if Saran’s late?” he asked hesitantly. Al was a strong, tough-looking man. Would the young woman need the protection of Child and Youth Services if she disobeyed her uncle?
“Oh, Saran’s never late.” Al chuckled. “She knows her curfew and keeps it, but she carries on that way every time she leaves the house. She likes to sound off.”
“Saran is very intense. She has a flair for drama,” Maureen put in. “Unlike Jamie. Jamie has been calm, cool and collected since the day she was born.” Her voice held a wistful note of regret.
Rule Breaker Page 10
