LOVE'S FUNNY THAT WAY

by Pamela Burford

  "Close scrape?"

  "Almost losing you."

  She pulled her hands out of his grasp. "Brent—"

  "Mom and Dad adore you," he said, beaming. "They told me about meeting you at Stitches on Wednesday. They're eager to get together with us—I told them tomorrow's good for brunch at their place."

  "What? They're expecting us tomorrow?"

  His smile broadened into a buoyant grin. "I know I won't be able to wait any longer than that to give them the good news."

  "The good…?" Raven watched as Brent slipped his hand between the sofa cushions and produced a small object that looked suspiciously like a ring box.

  He opened the box, revealing a traditional diamond engagement ring. The large, round-cut stone seemed to capture the room's meager light and throw it off in a blaze of sparks. "Will you marry me, Raven?"

  She was struck mute as Brent lifted her left hand and slid the ring onto her finger.

  "It fits," he said with a breathless chuckle, turning her hand this way and that. "I was afraid I'd have to get it sized." He looked at her. "It looks just right on your hand, honey. Say yes. I promise, I'll make you happy. Or die trying."

  The words tangled on Raven's tongue; nothing came out but a strangled sob. She covered her mouth, struggling to compose herself. How had everything gotten so turned around?

  Brent dipped his head to peer at her face, his expression a mixture of concern and cautious optimism. "Dare I hope those are tears of joy?" he asked, lifting a paper napkin from the table to gently blot her eyes.

  With trembling fingers she pulled the ring off.

  "Raven, don't," he said, staying her hand. "Don't say no. Give us a chance—"

  "It isn't meant to be." She pressed the ring into his palm.

  He stared at it, closed his fist around it. "You hate me."

  "I don't hate you, Brent. It just could never work out for us. There's too much … in the way."

  "This thing with Marina—it didn't mean anything, it'll never happen again. What you and I have is too precious to throw away. Just think about it—that's all I ask. Give it a few days."

  "Marina?"

  He hesitated. "That's her name."

  "I thought… Aren't there others?"

  "Other women? Well, not since … I mean, once I started seeing Marina…" He sighed raggedly. "Look, Raven, it's over, she's history, that's all that matters at this point."

  "Is Marina the one you're building the dollhouse for?"

  His eyes widened. "How do you know about the dollhouse?"

  "Don't you remember when you sent me down to the basement to fetch those pecans from the Deepfreeze?"

  "Oh…" he groaned.

  "I saw this half-built dollhouse on your workbench. Brent, you don't have any nieces, no young cousins I'm aware of. And that Victorian villa down there is so exquisitely detailed, with that delicate gingerbread and those fragile shingles and all—something tells me it's meant more for display than play."

  "It's—she's—it'll showcase her miniatures," he said miserably. "She collects this tiny scale-model furniture and stuff."

  "You're right in the middle of building that thing. It's really beautiful. Don't tell me you're going to abandon it now, after all the work you've put into it."

  Even in the low lighting, she saw Brent flush. "I'll finish it," he said, not meeting her eyes. "But that doesn't mean anything. I promised her a dollhouse and she's going to get one."

  "So you're going to, what? Give her this elaborate dollhouse you made just for her and say here it is, we're through?"

  "How do you know I haven't already told her we're through?"

  "Because no self-respecting woman would let you keep working on a project like that after you'd dumped her for another woman. She'd take that fancy dollhouse and smash it over your thick skull."

  "I was hoping…" Brent reached for his glass and tossed back half his wine. "I was hoping the dollhouse would kind of soften the blow."

  "Like a consolation prize?" Men could be so clueless. "Brent, it isn't the damn dollhouse she wants, it's you!"

  "What makes you say that? You don't even know her."

  "Unless this Marina is a total dullard, she's as aware of me as I've been of her. Chances are, she's figured out I was there first and she's the other woman."

  He emitted something between a whimper and a moan.

  Raven asked, "Is she a dullard?"

  He shook his head.

  She patted his arm. "Then she's waiting you out. Biding her time, hoping you'll come around and realize she's the woman for you. Which shows she's got more emotionally invested in you than I have."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I don't love you, Brent."

  "You think you don't—you're just hurt."

  "And you don't love me, either."

  "Sure I do, honey. Why do you think I want to marry you?"

  "Actually, I'm trying to figure that out. You've been seeing Marina almost as long as you've been seeing me. You've broken several dates with me to be with her." He opened his mouth and she said, "Don't you dare lie to me, Brent Radley. No more lies."

  He threw up his hands. "I told you. I was stupid. My priorities were twisted around. That's in the past."

  "Getting you to the club to watch me perform was like pulling teeth, but here you're building Marina a three-story dollhouse complete with little strips of fascia molding and tiny working windows and itty-bitty brass wall sconces that light up, for heaven's sake. You must've invested hundreds of hours in that project so far."

  "What's your point?" he grumbled, shoving the ring back into its box.

  "Marina's not the other woman. I am."

  His gaze shot to her. "It not her I want, it's you."

  "Why?"

  "Well, because … we're right for each other."

  "What makes me so right for you? What do I have that Marina doesn't?"

  "Character."

  "What's wrong with Marina's character?"

  "It's not … there's nothing exactly wrong with her character, it's just that … you have more of it."

  "I have more character?"

  "That's right. You have more of what I expect in a wife."

  Raven pondered his words, taking note of his telling discomfort with this subject, the gaps he seemed so reluctant to fill in. When the truth came to her she had to stifle a huff of laughter.

  "It's because I wouldn't sleep with you," she said. "That's it, isn't it?" She sat straighter, her smile incredulous. "I didn't sleep with you and she did, and that made all the difference."

  "That's an oversimplification."

  "Then what else is there? What are the other differences in our character?"

  He sighed in exasperation. "This is a pointless exercise. It's you I—"

  "Is she cruel to animals? Does she pick her nose in public?"

  "Jeez, Raven. I'm trying to propose to you, for crying out loud!"

  "Okay, I'm obviously not very romantic. There's one strike against me."

  "This whole thing is a joke to you, isn't it?"

  "Sure," she said, deadpan, "it's one big laugh fest. Tell me. What does Marina do for a living?"

  With obvious reluctance he said, "She's a swimsuit model."

  "Oh. My. God."

  "Raven—"

  "You cheated on me with a swimsuit model?" Visions of Sports Illustrated's recent swimsuit issue bombarded her mind. Wet, nubile young women clad in little more than suntans and goose bumps. The scraps of cloth they modeled had to weigh less than the sand that clung to their skinny thighs and buoyant bosoms and tiny, peachlike behinds.

  "How is an ordinary woman supposed to compete with that?" she demanded.

  "With what?"

  Men!

  "With that kind of centerfold perfection, that's what!"

  He drew himself up. "For your information, there's more to Marina than her body—she's a nice girl."

  "I thought you said she was lacking in character." As he st
umbled over a response, Raven continued, "You know, somehow I don't think Marina tied you down and ravished you. I'm betting you pulled out the stops to get her into bed, and now you're condemning her for being 'easy.' You're one of those men who believe there are two kinds of women—the kind you marry and the kind you—"

  "Is that what you think of me?" Brent pressed a hand to his chest. "That I hold women to some kind of double standard? What kind of a Neanderthal do you take me for?"

  "I have just one question for you, Brent. Who does your gut tell you to spend the rest of your life with—me or Marina?"

  "This isn't about my gut."

  "Granted, there are other body parts that come into play, but let's stick to one thing at a time. You know what I'm getting at. If you married me, you'd always regret it. Because no matter what you say, you don't really love me." She held up her hand to forestall his objection. "You have yet to say those three little words, do you realize that?"

  Brent hesitated. Tenderly he stroked her arm; he looked right into her eyes. "Love grows over time, Raven."

  "I think you're already in love, and I think you'd realize that if you weren't hung up on this 'character' issue. I'm not going to marry you, and if you wait too long to come to your senses about Marina, you'll lose her to some guy who appreciates her and doesn't judge her based on antediluvian notions about wifely purity."

  A muscle twitched in his jaw, reminding her of his brother. Last Wednesday she'd refrained from telling Hunter about her pending breakup with Brent, thinking Brent had a right to hear it first, in person. After Hunter had left her so abruptly in her car, during that rainstorm, she'd thought perhaps she should have told him, after all.

  But it wouldn't have made any difference—he'd told her he wouldn't have her even if she were no longer with Brent. She'd expected him to take that stand, of course, out of family loyalty; still, hearing him spell it out so ruthlessly had been sobering, to say the least.

  Raven wished to God she'd never entered the Wedding Ring pact so long ago. Then she'd never have met Brent or his brother. She wouldn't be suffering this raw, empty ache right now.

  She rose. "You'd better torn off the oven. I think that lasagna's beginning to scorch."

  Glumly Brent watched her retrieve her coat from the closet. She scooped up her shoulder bag from the floor and walked back to him. "We'll probably never see each other again." She bent to kiss his cheek as she buttoned her coat. "I wish you happiness, Brent. I mean that."

  Silently he tracked her progress until she reached the front door. Finally he said, "There's something you should know."

  She looked at him expectantly.

  "It's about Hunter." He picked up his wineglass. Leaned back on the sofa. Twirled the glass without looking at her. "He's got a thing for you."

  She stood paralyzed with her hand on the knob.

  "But you probably knew that already." Brent cast her a wry glance. "You seem to have pretty reliable intuition about these things. Anyway, maybe it's the real thing or maybe he's just in lust. If it's the real thing, he's sure as hell not going to tell me, is he?" He finished the last of his wine.

  Raven dropped her gaze to the gloves clutched in her hand. "Why are you telling me this?" When he failed to answer, she looked up and saw him studying her.

  "It isn't one-sided, is it?" he asked.

  No more lies, she'd told Brent. "No," she said quietly. "It isn't one-sided."

  "Is he the reason you're…?" He made walking motions with his fingers.

  She shook her head. "I told you, Brent. You and I couldn't have made it work. Even if there were no Hunter. Even if there were no Marina. Trust is very important to me."

  He acknowledged this with a small nod. "Well, I'd say that now might be a good time for you to have a little powwow with my brother, but you'll have to track him down first."

  Her heart stammered. "What do you mean, track him down?"

  "Hunter took off yesterday, for parts unknown," Brent said. "Not long after I showed him the ring."

  * * *

  Chapter 16

  «^»

  Hunter sipped Glenmorangie Scotch and gazed around at the interior of the Padded Cell. The walls of the club were indeed padded, lined with some sort of bulging, tufted white material. Speakers blasted the discordant strains of "They're Coming to Take Me Away" at migraine-inducing volume. A card on the table listed pricey house-specialty drinks with names like Totally Bonkers and Of Unsound Mind, questionable concoctions that Hunter had eschewed in favor of his usual single-malt whiskey.

  The waiters and waitresses wore tops that resembled straitjackets, with their arms free, of necessity, and the leather straps hanging loose. Most of them had gelled their hair into deranged-looking spikes.

  Earlier, Hunter had snagged a table for one near the stage and ordered a Loco Burger Deluxe. His waitress, who'd introduced herself as Demented Doris, had asked how he wanted his burger cooked: "crispy around the edges, maddeningly medium, or half-baked?"

  "Rare," he'd growled. The lackluster meal had ended with a dessert called Stark Raving Nuts, aka a slice of cloying, dried-out pecan pie.

  The owner of this place had taken the goofy theme to extremes. The club was smaller than Stitches, but louder, more frenetic; the sensory overload was downright oppressive. Hunter wouldn't even have come here except that he was determined to do something more constructive with his après-ski hours than sit in his rented room feeling sorry for himself. He figured that visiting the local comedy clubs here in Vermont—"shopping the competition"—qualified as constructive. Not only could he compare the clubs and perhaps get some ideas, but he'd be able to claim at least part of the trip as a tax deduction.

  When he thought of it that way, he could almost convince himself he wasn't running away from his problems. He'd told himself it was for Brent and Raven's sake that he'd left Stitches in Matt's hands and high-tailed it to Killington for an extended vacation—his first since opening the club. Without him around, Brent and his fiancée stood a better chance of cementing their future. Raven would be able to concentrate on the man she loved without the disrupting presence of his unscrupulous little brother.

  Funny, he'd never thought of himself as unscrupulous before Raven had entered his life. Of course, never before had his scruples been so sorely tested.

  His first three nights in Vermont had been on the weekend, and the clubs he'd visited had featured semi-well-known headliners. It was now Monday, open-mike night at the Padded Cell. The house lights dimmed and a fortyish woman with a striped purple-and-orange buzz cut and garish makeup strode onto the stage, the backdrop of which was padded like the rest of the club. She wore a doctor's white lab coat and brandished a bullwhip.

  Her method of warming up the crowd consisted of screeching things like "Are you ready to go completely insane?" while snapping the whip. She kept it up until she had the rowdier, drunker elements of the audience howling, barking and stomping their feet. One woman in back did an awesomely realistic monkey call at the top of her lungs.

  Hunter had seen—and heard—enough. A dull throbbing had begun behind his eyes. Rising, he tossed some money on the table and snatched up his green down vest from the chair back. He turned to leave just as the emcee introduced the first amateur performer.

  "You're going to go crazy for Raven Muldoon!"

  Hunter froze with his back to the stage. He'd misheard. A trick of his Raven-fixated subconscious. Then she spoke, and sure enough, it was Raven's voice saying, "My boyfriend just proposed to me."

  Slowly Hunter turned and stared dumbstruck as a smiling Raven, not twenty feet away, tugged the mike out of its stand. She couldn't see him, he knew, with the stage lights in her eyes. Did she know he was there?

  Someone behind Hunter griped, "Outta the way, buddy!" but he stood rooted to the spot.

  "He bought me a diamond the size of a bottle cap," Raven continued, as the crowd hooted their approval.

  "Where's the ring?" yelled a woman in back, and Hunter lo
oked at Raven's left hand, holding the mike. It was bare.

  "I turned him down. I found out he was cheating on me. With a swimsuit model," Raven said, to a mixed chorus of feminine groans and masculine wolf whistles.

  The guy behind him snarled, "You gonna move or what?" Hunter dropped back into his seat.

  She turned Brent down?

  Raven strolled across the stage, gesturing emphatically. "I mean, a swimsuit model! He had to cheat on me with someone who looks sexy flossing her teeth. But that's not the only reason I said no. He's got this—" she stopped in her tracks and gave the audience a sultry smile "—little brother."

  This was met with suggestive guffaws and a handful of pithy comments. Hunter could only sit and listen, flabbergasted.

  "Yes, it's true," she admitted. "I fell in love with my boyfriend's brother. How tacky is that? It's like sneaking back for seconds and thirds when they're giving away free samples of fried pork rinds at the supermarket—you can't believe you're doing it, you're helpless to stop and you pray to God you don't get caught."

  I fell in love with my boyfriend's brother. The words echoed in Hunter's mind. Had she really said them? Did she mean them?

  Raven went on to describe, in dryly humorous terms, how she was obligated by the terms of a secret high-school matchmaking pact to date the designated boyfriend for three months, despite the fact that she'd fallen for his brother big-time.

  That was why she'd kept seeing Brent! Hunter realized with a start. When she'd told him that she couldn't explain why she was still with Brent despite his cheating, he'd accused her of being blindly in love, a doormat—but it was really because of this bizarre pact she and her pals had concocted when they were kids!

  Raven got a lot of laughs describing the debilitating fear of heights that had prompted Hunter to seek private therapy with her, yet somehow had failed to keep him out of swaying ski lifts and rickety little airplanes.