Keeping Company

by Tami Hoag

  “You know Jayne Jordan?” Alaina blurted out.

  Dylan nodded.

  “I should have guessed,” she mumbled. If there was an oddball within fifty miles—and there were plenty in northern California—Jayne knew him. If they happened to be single men, she usually tried to coerce Alaina into going out with them. Jayne, who was a widow, was a notorious matchmaker when it came to her friends. Alaina shuddered to think of what oddball might have been awaiting her at the party tonight. Getting arrested may have had its upside after all.

  “You’re a friend of Jayne’s?” Dylan asked. He had already surmised as much, but her nod of confirmation still surprised him. Alaina Montgomery didn’t strike him as being the type to hang out with someone of Jayne’s … uniqueness.

  “We went to college together.”

  “So what say we get this Jayne broad down here to vouch for you?” Deputy Skreawupp suggested. He took a bottle of triple-strength aspirin out of a desk drawer and shook out half a handful.

  Alaina perked up. “You’re not going to throw me in the clink?”

  “Lady, you’re more trouble than you’re worth. I don’t need it,” he said flatly. “I’ll let you both off with a fine for creating a public nuisance.”

  Alaina opened her mouth to protest. Suddenly Dylan was beside her, clamping a hand over her denial. Sliding down next to her, he smiled charmingly and whispered, “Quit while you’re behind, Princess. So far, you’ve insulted his family name, called him incompetent, and threatened to sue. All in all, I’d say we’re getting off lucky.”

  She sat back in her chair and absently rubbed her hand over her chin where Dylan had touched her. Calling Jayne in wasn’t necessarily a great idea. Who knew what she would come in dressed up as? On the other hand, there really wasn’t anyone else she could call. Of the trio of friends who had moved to Anastasia, Faith was easy to get to know, and Jayne was the kind of person who befriended people on sight. Alaina tended to hold herself a little apart from people. Instinctively wary of relationships, she could count her close friends on her fingers. Consequently, she knew virtually no one in her new home.

  Faith would have been the one to call. She radiated trustworthiness. Besides, her husband-to-be was a former top-notch Federal agent. Deputy Screwup would have melted under the power of Shane Callan’s stare. But Faith had gone to Maine to meet Shane’s family.

  The only other person Alaina knew well at all in Anastasia was the woman who rented out the other half of her duplex, her new secretary, Marlene Desidarian. Having the secretary of her soon-to-open law practice come down essentially to bail her out of jail did not seem a prudent business strategy.

  That left Jayne.

  “Deal,” she said, sending the stony-faced deputy a dazzling smile.

  Dylan had watched her as she’d contemplated. He had practically heard the well-oiled wheels whirring in her brain as she considered strategies. A grudging admiration knotted with a sense of foreboding in his chest. He was attracted to Alaina Montgomery—big-time. The wallop her smile delivered confirmed it; it wasn’t even directed at him, and still he felt reverberations clear to his toes.

  He frowned as he sat back and squared one booted leg over the other. He was definitely going to have to watch his step here.

  The call to Jayne was confusing to say the very least, but that was no surprise to Alaina. She only hoped her scatterbrained friend had understood the message. The theme music from Star Trek had been blaring in the background, making conversation virtually impossible. All she could do now was wait, she thought as she slid back down on her chair, carefully arranging her sinfully short skirt to cover the tops of her thighs.

  Dylan sipped the herb tea Mrs. Fletcher had served them, wondering what he was doing hanging around. He had been sufficiently vouched for. He was free to go. But … His gaze strayed Alaina’s way. She looked sort of forlorn now that the fight was over. She wasn’t at all the kind of woman he wanted to spend his time with, and yet …

  It was those legs, he thought, groaning inwardly as he watched her cross one lovely gam over the other.

  “So, you and Jayne went to college together.”

  “Yes. Notre Dame, class of ’77,” Alaina said, gritting her teeth as she realized she’d just dated herself.

  “Well, I know Jayne’s story. How did you end up in Anastasia?”

  Chasing rainbows, Alaina thought, a small, rueful smile canting her lips. Running from one dream in search of another. Those weren’t the answers she gave, however. Admitting confusion was tantamount to admitting a weakness. That wasn’t something she did easily.

  She gave Dylan a careless shrug. “I was burned out. I needed a change of scenery.”

  So, she would be here only temporarily, Dylan decided. She’d said she was the youngest partner in the history of her firm back in Chicago. That meant she had ambition. Ambitious women didn’t stay long in a town like Anastasia. They came for the sea air and a dose of simplicity and quaint coastal charm, then they packed their Gucci bags and climbed in their yuppie-mobiles and headed back to their corporate offices for another round of ladder-climbing.

  A sigh escaped him as his baser male instincts began mourning the departure of those mouth-watering legs.

  She was going to be here only as long as it took her to recharge her ambition and work up a new appetite for conquering the male-dominated world. That made her less dangerous to him, didn’t it? He knew she was all wrong for him, knew she wasn’t staying. With those lines of distinction drawn, didn’t that mean he could enjoy her company while she was here?

  It was truly remarkable the rationalization a great pair of legs could inspire, he thought. He was actually contemplating spending time with Alaina Montgomery. The idea settled in his mind, then drifted lower as he imagined all the ways he could enjoy those beautifully shaped limbs that were now encased in black mesh stockings. Let’s see, there was looking, caressing, wrapping them around his—

  “What does one do at a bar and bait shop?” Alaina queried, more to get his attention off her legs than anything. The intensity of his dark gaze had her squirming on her chair. Of course, she pretended not to be affected in the least. Why, her hands barely shook at all as she lit her cigarette. It was a real victory of a woman’s higher nature over her animal instincts.

  Dylan sent her a devilish smile, knowing full well women like Alaina had an innate disdain for men who didn’t wear Brooks Brothers suits. A bar and bait shop was way out of the realm of respectability for her. He wondered cynically how bored she would have sounded had he informed her that he had once been a hotshot investment counselor. “I sell bait to sport fishermen, a buddy of mine rents them boats, then when they get back at the end of the day, they get drunk on my liquor and lie about all the big fish that got away.”

  She sent a thin blue stream of smoke into the air and arched a brow. “Sounds like a racket.”

  “Yeah. It’s called free enterprise. Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Alaina sat back in her chair, completely caught off balance by his request. What a devious tactic, changing subjects that way. She couldn’t help but admire his strategy. He was handsome and clever. That was a rare and dangerously appealing combination.

  “Dinner,” he said affably. “You know, it’s that meal at the end of the day.”

  She shot him a look. “I know what dinner is.”

  “Good, then we’re over that hurdle.” He leaned forward on his chair, warming to the idea of a date almost as much as he was warming up from leering at the lawyer’s lovely legs. “I know a great little place up near Russian Gulch, very quiet, out of the way, great dance band. So, it’s a date?”

  “It’s not a date!” Alaina declared, scooting over on her chair as if she were afraid to have him breathe on her. In fact, she was trying to escape the lure of his body heat and the shiver of delicious anticipation his suggestion had set loose inside her. She would not succumb to her hormones, she stated inwardly, though
less emphatically than before. Her shoulders squared defensively, thrusting her full breasts out in a way that made Dylan groan low in his throat. “I won’t go out with you. I hardly know you. Why, not an hour ago I thought you were a social deviant.”

  He looked wounded, dramatically clutching his hands to his heart as if her words had been a dagger plunged into his chest. “How can you say you hardly know me? How can you say that after all we’ve shared? We’ve been arrested together!” Leaning so close to Alaina, just a deep breath away from kissing her, he lowered his voice to a devastatingly sexy pitch. “We’ve shared handcuffs. I usually save that for the third or fourth date.”

  Ignoring the warm tingles his nearness—not to mention his audacious admission—brought on, Alaina gave him an incredulous look and shoved him back into his own space. “You’re completely irreverent!”

  “That’s true. I don’t have a reverent bone in my body. It made headlines in the Enquirer when I was born: ‘Mystery Baby Born Without Reverent Bones—Space Alien or Love Child of Elvis’ Ghost?’ ”

  “See there?” Alaina said, waving an elegant hand in a dismissive gesture as she bit back her laughter. Her cool blue eyes sparkled like ice on a sunny winter day. “I don’t date men who read the Enquirer, let alone men who make the front page.”

  “Snob,” he accused good-naturedly.

  She smiled and tapped her ash into the cheap tin Reno, Nevada, souvenir ashtray she’d taken off Deputy Skreawupp’s desk. “Yes, I am.”

  “And darn proud of it,” Dylan declared emphatically, slapping his thigh.

  “Naturally.”

  Dylan grinned. The impact of that dazzling smile nearly knocked Alaina off her chair. Lord, he was handsome, bar and bait shop or not. And he was really quite charming in a tacky sort of way.

  “If you’re going to do something, do it well, I say. Or, as my father likes to put it, if you go hunting for bear, don’t come home with a greasy dead possum.”

  Alaina grimaced. “What a disgusting backwoods maxim.”

  “I come from disgusting backwoods stock,” Dylan admitted with a smile. “Hayseeds and bumpkins abound on my family tree. We even have a mountain man or two.”

  “Better than I had imagined,” Alaina quipped. “Still, it’s another perfectly legitimate reason why I can’t go out with you; you’re ill-bred.”

  She was cut from the same cloth as Veronica Howard, all right, Dylan thought. But there was one big difference between Alaina Montgomery and his ex-wife. Alaina’s sardonic tone was laced with martini-dry good humor. When Veronica had derided his background, she’d meant every word. Alaina seemed to enjoy playing the role of the upwardly mobile, materialistic ice princess, but he sensed there was more to her than that.

  Catching a glimpse of her cleavage, he held his breath tight in his lungs. Brother, was there more to her!

  “Do you have any illegitimate reasons for not going out with me?” he asked, his dark eyes gleaming with mischief.

  “No, but I do have an illiberal thought or two.”

  “How about illicit thoughts?” He waggled his eyebrows, a smile tugging at his lips as he caught the light of amusement in her eyes. Pretty eyes, mesmerizing and translucent with a bit of an exotic slant to them. A man could get lost staring into those eyes. At the moment he couldn’t help but think that wasn’t such a bad idea.

  Alaina stuck her patrician nose in the air and sniffed. “In your dreams, Harrison.”

  He cast a longing glance at her legs and muttered, “You’ve got that right.”

  She didn’t fight her smile this time. Her lush mouth hitched up on the right, and she shook her head. The man might have been a complete buffoon, but she was having fun bantering with him. Clayton hadn’t been much for verbal swordplay. Lies and deception, yes; he’d been a master at those. But when it came to the kind of sparring she was enjoying with Dylan Harrison, A. Clayton Collier had been a flop. He took things too literally and too seriously for double entendre.

  Dylan Harrison, on the other hand, seemed to take nothing seriously. His attitude was rubbing off on her. Already she wasn’t half as mad about getting arrested, though she did still feel betrayed by her car. And she didn’t really feel all that nervous about turning into a clone of her mother. There wasn’t a chance in hell of her becoming seriously involved with Dylan; they were far too different. All she was feeling toward him now was chemistry. It was possible to feel chemistry and still be in control, she decided. He was a handsome man, and charming in a bizarre, Bill Murray sort of way. What woman wouldn’t respond to that on a basic level?

  Still, she decided, it was probably best to set him straight right off. “I’m not looking for a relationship,” she announced, giving him her most serious courtroom expression.

  “That makes two of us,” Dylan admitted. “All I want is a dinner companion and a dancing partner. People tend to stare when I go dancing by myself.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “So, you want to know more about me?”

  “Not really,” she lied smoothly.

  Dylan pressed on as if she had begged him to continue. “I don’t really like to talk about myself, but if you insist. My name is Dylan Henry Harrison. I’m forty years old as of ten twenty-two this evening. I like to sail and play the baritone. My favorite color is fuchsia, and I have long, bony feet, but I’m not vain about them in the least. What time should I pick you up?”

  “Fuchsia?”

  “Yes.” He leaned toward her again, a sexy smile turning his lips and lighting dark fires in his coffee-brown eyes. “You’d look great in fuchsia,” he confided in a low, pillow-talk whisper. On impulse he lifted a finger to trace the clean line of her jaw. Her skin was like silk, cool and soft. “You’d look great out of fuchsia too. So what time—”

  A horrified look came over his face as he sat up, his back ramrod straight. “Oh, damn. Time. What time is it?” He grabbed Alaina’s wrist and consulted the slim gold Rolex she wore, then bolted out of his chair, grabbed up the receiver of Deputy Skreawupp’s phone, and start punching buttons, muttering curses under his breath.

  Alaina watched him, only slightly bemused. She had already decided that nothing the man could do would surprise her.

  “Hello, Cori, sweetheart? It’s Daddy.”

  Except that.

  Alaina braced a fist under her chin to keep her jaw from dropping and putting a dent in her chest. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do to keep her heart from dropping into her stomach and sinking like a scuttled ship. A wave of nausea swept over her, leaving her feeling clammy and cold and looking for the ladies’ room.

  He was married. He was a daddy. He was a philandering lothario, a licentious libertine. And she had been about to agree to have dinner with him! Only to humor him, of course. It wasn’t that she was truly all that attracted to him or anything, she insisted, disregarding the wild humming of her hormones as she stared at him.

  Wasn’t looking for a relationship, indeed! No wonder. He already had a relationship, complete with little relationships attached! A nice, quiet, out-of-the-way restaurant. Right. So none of his in-laws could stumble across him!

  Anger swirled through her in a whirlwind, mixing with another emotion, one she couldn’t quite define. It was sort of like disappointment intermingled with guilt. She did her level best to ignore it and concentrate on fury instead. Fury was pure and uncomplicated and it hurt a hell of a lot less.

  Suddenly the front door burst open, and Jayne Jordan made a grand entrance. She was dressed as some kind of fairy, complete with gossamer wings and a sparkling wand. Layers of white chiffon floated over her petite form like a cloud. Her dark auburn hair was alight with silver and gold glitter. Right behind her was an enormous hairy creature who had to duck to get through the door. Once inside, he took his head off—or rather, his mask—and looked around, a pleasant grin revealing a space between his two front teeth.

  “Jeepers criminy,” Deputy Skreawupp muttered in utter disgust as he rose
from his desk and moved to stand in front of it with his arms crossed above his potbelly. “Bunch of demented communists.”

  “Alaina!” Jayne exclaimed, her dark eyes wide with worry and wonder. She hurried through the little gate and rushed back to her friend, her wand bobbing. “Honey, are you all right? What happened?”

  “A slight misunderstanding,” Alaina said tightly, forcing herself to her feet and willing her knees to support her weight. She deliberately avoided looking Dylan’s way, riveting her icy stare on her friend instead. “First, let me say just briefly that, were I a vindictive sort of person, I would make your life a living hell for insisting I wear this costume. Since I love you like a sister, I’ll forgive you.”

  Jayne had the grace to look contrite, though she didn’t apologize.

  “There was a minor incident with my car, and Deputy Screw—Skreawupp came to the erroneous conclusion that I was a—er—”

  “Hooker,” the deputy said with a grunt.

  Alaina shot him a venomous look. “Thank you so much.”

  Jayne burst into laughter. She turned to the deputy. “Oh, honey, you couldn’t get much further from the truth. She’s Princess Andora of the Zanatares, upholder of the Sacred Laws of the Seventh Galaxy in the ninth millennium.”

  The deputy’s beetle brows rose and fell like a pair of dancing woolly caterpillars. “And who are you? Tinker Bell?”

  “No,” Jayne drawled with an impish smile. “I’m Sarafina, high priestess of the fairies of the primordial forests of Mandrocona.” She gestured toward the hairy mountain standing behind her. “My friend Arnie is a Wookie. You know, like Chewbacca in Star Wars.”

  Arnie tucked his fake head under his arm and nodded at the deputy. “Ya, pleased to meet you,” he said in a heavy Austrian accent.

  “Jayne,” Alaina said through her teeth, “you’re not exactly helping my cause here. Vouch for me. As a human film critic from twentieth-century Earth.”