Keeping Company

by Tami Hoag

  “Keeping company,” Alaina murmured, considering. It was an interesting theory. Lord knew she was sick to death of her friends trying to pair her off with men they thought would be perfect for her. And Dylan was fun to spar with. If she could get over the fact that he dressed with all the flare of a color-blind gypsy, it might be an interesting alliance at that.

  She didn’t allow herself to look any deeper into her reasons for considering his proposition. She told herself it didn’t have anything to do with the moment that had passed between them in the dining room or the way he had touched her cheek the other night or the unexpected pang of gushy sentiment she’d felt when he had excused himself from the dinner table so he could call his kids and wish them sweet dreams.

  “Interested?” he asked, studying her expression carefully as she thought.

  “Maybe.”

  Dylan’s heart beat a little quicker at the prospect of her accepting his offer. Her motives weren’t important just now. The important thing was getting the opportunity. It would be up to him to make the most of it.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’ve got a couple of social events coming up where I will be considered fair game for all unfettered females. It sure would be nice to have a safe date that didn’t have designs on my marital status.”

  Alaina nibbled one corner of her lush lower lip and turned to lean sideways against the porch railing and stare off into the night. She thought of the social events she had coming up—the Bar Association dinner dance, Faith’s wedding. She thought of Morton Sternberg, who wore a foot-long strand of hair combed horizontally across his bald head, and Quenton Stockley of the leisure suit and Three Stooges film festival.

  Keeping company with Dylan Harrison seemed like a concept with a lot of merit. They could definitely help each other out, she rationalized. And of course there was no danger of either of them getting in too deep; they were simply too different. Besides, they had both categorically stated they were not interested in a genuine relationship.

  It could be kind of fun, she thought, absently brushing the knuckles of her right hand over the pin she wore. And maybe, she thought with a touch of wistfulness, maybe they could go dancing.

  “What do you say, Princess? Rather take your chances with Morton the orthodontist?”

  Alaina shrugged, slanting him a teasing and unconsciously flirtatious look that hit Dylan like a mortar. “I don’t know. He did say I have a lovely bite.”

  “And you didn’t slap his face? You shameless hussy.”

  She chuckled as she tapped out her cigarette on the porch railing. Yes, this could be a lot of fun. She liked Dylan Harrison and he liked her. There was nothing dangerous in liking.

  “You’ve got yourself a deal, Harrison,” she said, offering her hand to him in a businesslike fashion.

  He took it with a devilish grin and on impulse pulled her into his arms, bent her over backward, and planted his mouth on hers.

  Chapter 4

  You’re in big trouble, Montgomery.

  It was Alaina’s one rational thought before she succumbed completely to the warm, wild taste of Dylan’s mouth. She’d been right. That mouth of his was made for this—a long, slow, deep kiss. Taken by surprise, taken by a storm of sudden desire, she clung to his broad shoulders and let him sweep her senses away.

  His mouth slanted across hers lazily, warming as she responded. The heat and taste of him was instantly addictive. She made a soft sound of surprise and surrender as she let him nuzzle her lips apart and allowed his tongue access to the honeyed heat beyond.

  You’ve stuck your foot in it now, Harrison, Dylan thought as a brief but oppressive sense of impending doom descended on him. Well, not his foot precisely, but the implication was the same. He was in trouble. He hadn’t meant to kiss her like this. He’d meant to give her a cocky, innocent smack on the mouth just to see the look on her face. But the instant lips had met lips something had gone very wrong.

  Or was that very right?

  Hell, he didn’t know. All he knew at the moment was that she tasted like no other woman he’d ever kissed—warm and exotic and curiously sweet. And the way she felt in his arms was enough to make a man lose his mind.

  “Have you lost your mind?!” It was the first thing, the only thing, Alaina could think to say when the kiss ended. She wasn’t even certain if she was asking him or herself.

  On wobbly legs she backed away from him, abruptly bumping into the porch railing. Her heart was racing like an Indy car. Her mouth felt as if it were on fire, and it wasn’t the only part of her that was burning.

  Dylan stared at her, looking astounded, though it was a toss-up as to whether his expression was for Alaina or for himself. His chest was heaving like a bellows. Holy Hannah, what had he just started?

  “Um … that was an accident,” he said for lack of a better explanation.

  “Fender benders are accidents. Kisses do not fall under the heading of accident in my book,” Alaina said, her temper rising.

  Dylan scowled. “So sue me.”

  “Don’t tempt me.”

  “Lawyers,” he muttered. What had ever possessed him to make a deal with a lawyer? Temporary insanity caused by a pair of gorgeous gams. Damn, he was an idiot.

  Blue eyes narrowed, Alaina fought the urge to scream. So he was above dealing with lawyers, was he? Brother. This from the owner of a bar and bait shop! It was just too galling. And kissing her had been so unpleasant, he had to call it an accident, huh?

  “Take your deal and stick it, Harrison,” she said through her gritted teeth. “I’d sooner keep company with a snake.”

  A strange sense of panic gave Dylan a boot as he watched her turn and storm for the door—not Marlene’s door, but her own farther down the porch. He didn’t want her to leave. It wasn’t exactly a pleasant realization, but it was the truth.

  He bolted after her, catching the edge of the door as she went inside and tried to swing it shut behind her. “Hey, wait. You can’t renege. We made a deal. We shook on it. We kissed on it.”

  Alaina turned on one elegant heel and glared up at him, her hands knotted into fists at her sides. “That was an accident,” she reminded him in an acid tone.

  “Dammit, Alaina, a deal’s a deal,” he insisted as he followed her in.

  “Did I sign anything?” she asked, her gaze casting about for something to throw at him that wasn’t valuable. “Did you have a witness? Was there a notary present?”

  He should have known better than to try to argue legality with an attorney; they could jump through loopholes like trick poodles through hoops. He was going to have to take a different tack if he was to salvage his flawed stroke of genius.

  He prowled around Alaina’s living room, taking in the impeccable state of it. It looked like something out of House Beautiful. Rose-colored overstuffed chairs and a sofa were artistically arranged on a rich carpet of silver gray. Waxy-white lilies stood in a black vase on a table along one wall. There wasn’t so much as a dust mote out of place. It was immaculate, cool, classy, and perfectionistic—just like the woman who lived there.

  He noticed idly that there were no personal mementos, no family photos, no hint as to who Alaina Montgomery really was. And it dawned on him for the second time that night that he wanted to know. The night they had been arrested he had suspected there was more to her than sassy bravado. When he’d kissed her, he’d caught a glimpse of something soft, something vulnerable within her. Something feminine and fragile that she kept hidden safe inside, guarding it with a shield of icy self-reliance. Unless he’d been imagining things, he had seen a flash of hurt flare briefly in her cool blue eyes when he’d stuck his foot in his mouth and called that kiss an accident.

  Alaina watched him roam around the room. Wary, she stood near the sofa with her arms crossed in front of her. She should have been demanding he leave, but the words wouldn’t form. She studied him instead. He moved with the lithe, unconscious grace of a dancer. He would have looked great in an Armani suit, t
he sharp, angular lines showing off his lanky, athletic frame. That image faded into one of him decked out in black tie, escorting her to the Bar Association dinner, sweeping her around the dance floor with a smile on his handsome face. Pain echoed through her like the sound of a gong at the thought that her image would never become a reality.

  “I’m sorry I called the kiss an accident,” Dylan said, stopping his pacing in front of her. “It wasn’t an accident; it was a surprise.”

  That was a fact. It had surprised the hell out of him.

  He arched a dark brow and shot Alaina a roguish little smile. “A pleasant surprise at that. I don’t see that it’s any reason to call off the deal.”

  In spite of her wariness, Alaina felt warmed by that little smile, and she answered it with one of her own. Her fears and anger evaporated like so much mist in the desert. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Utterly. However, that is not a crime.”

  “No,” she agreed, reaching out to tug at the end of his hula dancer necktie. “This tie is a crime.”

  Dylan gave an exaggerated sigh, lifting his bold blade of a nose and rolling his eyes. “You have such a narrow vision of fashion.”

  “Yes, it’s called taste,” Alaina said, relaxing as she slipped off her pumps and padded across the carpet to the liquor cabinet. “Would you like a drink?”

  “I don’t suppose you have any Kool-Aid.”

  “I have Scotch.”

  “Pass,” he said, slouching down on her sofa and propping his feet on the smoked-glass coffee table. “I don’t drink.”

  “You own a bar.”

  “That doesn’t mean I help myself to the inventory.”

  “Only the waitresses?”

  “One of my two waitresses has a husband with no neck and arms like tree trunks. The guy makes Hulk Hogan look anorexic.”

  “And the other waitress?” she asked, casually batting his feet off her table as she passed.

  “Is his identical twin sister, Chloe. And I do mean identical. She’s got her eye on me, but I make it a policy never to date women who have more facial hair than I do.” He sat ahead on the sofa and watched her settle in the chair across from him. “Speaking of dates, what do you say, Princess? Is the deal still on?”

  Alaina looked down at her drink, swirling the amber liquid in the glass as she thought. She liked being with him. There wasn’t anything wrong with that, was there? They could have some fun, have a few laughs. Where was the danger in that? She knew he wasn’t looking for anything serious. Why that thought left her feeling hollow, she wasn’t sure. She had stated more than once that she wasn’t looking for a relationship either, hadn’t she? Where was the harm in their spending time together?

  “I guess,” she murmured softly.

  Dylan made no comment. He just sat back and looked at her, a strange warmth settling in his belly as if he were the one drinking the Scotch. A halo of lamplight fell on Alaina’s brown hair, giving it a silvery cast. With her head bent down, her expression was an unguarded look of vulnerability. He knew she didn’t realize it; she would never have let him see a weakness in her ice-princess armor. But he did see it, and it brought an odd feeling of tenderness to his heart.

  Yes, he would spend time with Alaina. They would play this little game to fool their friends. But damned if he didn’t suddenly want it to be a lot more than that.

  “I should go,” he said, checking his watch. “I promised my daughter I’d tuck her in. I don’t want it to get too late.”

  “How old is she?” Alaina asked. She was genuinely curious about Dylan’s children, but half her reason for asking was to keep him from leaving.

  “Seven. The divorce was really hard on her. She can’t understand why her mom went south in pursuit of fame and fortune. Little girls tend to think their mothers should want them.”

  That hit home. Alaina felt an instant kinship with Dylan’s daughter. She frowned into her Scotch. “Some women aren’t cut out to be mothers. Unfortunately, knowing that doesn’t make it any easier to be their kid,” she said candidly.

  Dylan didn’t comment. He knew instinctively Alaina did not make a habit of revealing that kind of personal information. He soaked it up like a sponge and craved more, but settled for what she’d given him.

  “You have full custody?” she asked.

  “Yes. Of Cori and my son, Sam, too. He’s nine going on forty-two.” He was curious how she would react to his kids and how his kids would react to her, but it seemed a dangerous train of thought to pursue, so he dismissed it. What he and Alaina were entering into didn’t really allow for those kinds of questions … yet. He pushed himself to his feet and stretched lazily. “You’ll meet them Sunday. At one of those dreaded social events I mentioned. How do you feel about picnics?”

  “I’m game,” she said as she stood and followed him across the room. “Besides, a deal’s a deal, right?”

  He turned at the door and gave her a long look. “Right.”

  For an odd handful of seconds their gazes held, blue eyes and brown full of wary speculation about this threshold they were about to cross. Alaina glanced away first, dropping her gaze as Julia slipped in the door, wound her slender body around Dylan’s ankles once, then trotted off in the direction of the kitchen.

  “It’s a magic crystal,” Dylan said softly.

  She looked up at him, puzzled.

  “The Crystal of Kalamari. It’s a magic crystal taken from the cave of the wizard Danathamien in Tales of the Kalamari by Frank D. Richard.”

  “My,” she said, gazing down at the pin, at the rainbow of colors caught inside the prism of glass. “And all this time I thought it came from a flea market in the Sudan. Does it have any special powers?”

  “Oh, yes,” he said, much more serious in his answer than she had been in asking. “If your heart is pure and your desire is strong, the crystal can make your dreams come true.”

  Hooking a finger under her chin, he tilted her face up and dropped a kiss on her softly parted lips. “Good night, Princess. I’ll see you on Sunday.”

  “So, you and Dylan hit it off, huh?”

  It wasn’t so much a statement as it was an exclamation of disbelief.

  Alaina glanced up from her painting to shoot a disgruntled look Jayne’s way. Jayne was seated cross-legged on the porch swing, head bent, painting her toenails orchid.

  The Saturday-morning air was fresh and brimming with September sunshine. A small, round wicker table on the porch held a carafe of coffee and the remnants of the muffins Jayne had brought for breakfast. Alaina had been wondering how best to bring up the subject of Dylan Harrison. Jayne had taken the matter out of her hands.

  “Is that so difficult to believe?”

  “I’ll say.” Jayne dipped her brush back in the polish bottle and left it there so she could talk with her hands. “You two are from completely different planes of awareness. I know they say opposites attract, but honey, this is stretching it to the limit. I mean, Dylan is laid-back and easygoing, completely unconcerned about appearances and material possessions, and you’re”—she hesitated, obviously searching for a diplomatic comparison—“not.”

  Alaina narrowed her eyes. She’d just about had it with people telling her how incompatible she and Dylan were. Marlene had been chanting it for two days like a mantra.

  So she enjoyed the trappings of her success. Owning a BMW was hardly a serious character flaw. And so Dylan ran a bait shop and dressed like a street person. So what? He was witty and irreverent and fun.

  Alaina stabbed her paintbrush in a glob of black on her palette and applied it to the canvas with aggressive strokes. Lord, was she actually defending him? Did it really matter what their friends thought of their relationship? The important thing was that everyone know they were seeing each other. That was the whole idea, wasn’t it?

  An ill-tempered snarl simmered behind her teeth. She glared at her canvas. She had been in on the plan to fool everybody from the very start. It wasn’t as if the scheme
had just hit her as a complete surprise. But now that she’d had a couple of days to stew about it, the idea of “keeping company” had her feeling extremely crabby, and she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

  It was the ideal solution to the pervasive problem of mate-minded friends and their dubious matchmaking skills. There was just something about having Dylan Harrison considering her “safe” that rubbed her the wrong way. The competitor in her was chomping at the bit to prove him wrong.

  “So what have the two of you got planned?”

  Alaina’s paintbrush jerked upward, putting a horn on her horse’s head.

  “Planned?” she asked, her heartbeat pounding. Had Jayne seen through the ruse already? Impossible. Jayne didn’t look for subterfuge, she looked for symbolism. She snuck a look at her friend. “What makes you think we have something planned?”

  “And you claim I don’t make any sense,” Jayne grumbled. She sat back, fanning her wet toenails with the loose tails of the oversize paisley shirt she wore above a flowing khaki skirt. “People who are seeing each other usually have things planned. You know, like dates.”

  “Oh. Dates. Of course.” Alaina let out a measure of pent-up breath with each sentence. Her angular shoulders relaxed beneath the navy-blue polo shirt she wore. “I’m going with him to a picnic tomorrow.”

  Jayne looked impressed. Her dark eyes rounded even more than usual in her pixie face, the light of speculation gleaming deep within them. Alaina discounted it. It was just a picnic. Jayne was easily amazed. Grass growing amazed Jayne. “He’s taking you to the bar and bait shop employee picnic? Hmm.”

  To fend off the advances of Chloe the bearded waitress. It was hardly a flattering thought. Nor was it a thought she could share with Jayne. Jayne and her penchant for matchmaking had gotten her into this situation in the first place.

  “This sounds semiserious,” Jayne said. She reached for a piece of blueberry muffin and nibbled on it thoughtfully. “So I guess I won’t ask you if you want to go out with Knute Grabowski again.”