Keeping Company

by Tami Hoag

  The old wound opened as if it had simply scarred over but never really healed. He’d never been so frightened in his life.

  He stared at Alaina. Alaina stared back. Neither realized the sudden wariness they saw on the other’s face was just a reflection of their own expressions. Raw nerves hummed in the still night air. Tender feelings that each had buried lay open and vulnerable, and hearts that longed for love but feared rejection ached half a room apart. And overhead, clouds rolled in to obscure the moon, and the rainbow that had poured down from the skylight vanished into darkness.

  Chapter 10

  It was the beginning of the end. She could feel it. In a dozen subtle little ways Alaina could feel Dylan pulling back from her. The days of their deal were numbered.

  She sat at her newly refinished desk—the desk Dylan had helped her find—mentally going over the checklist of danger signals as she pretended to listen to her client. Her stomach churned as she called to mind all the little digs against her lifestyle and her career he had shot at her in the three days since their trip to San Francisco. Not that he hadn’t done that from day one, but there was a difference in his tone these days. There was a definite chill in the air that had little to do with the approach of winter.

  To make matters worse, her natural reaction was to fight back. If he picked on her car, she retaliated with remarks about his truck. When he sniped at her preference for designer labels, she lambasted his liking for dilapidated denim and shirts that would make Hawaiians cringe.

  They were caught in a horrible downward spiral that was pushing them apart until they seemed like strangers with nothing in common except sexual preferences.

  It had all started with that damned dinner dance. Why had she gotten so head up about going dancing with him? Was she developing some kind of fatalistic Ginger Rogers fixation or what? She should have known Dylan would hate anything as vainglorious as a Bar Association social function. Everything about it would rub him the wrong way—including her role. Somewhere between the hors d’oeuvres and the adieus he had come to a decision about her. He didn’t want her.

  Oh, he’d been able to put up with her short-term, but over the long haul Dylan Harrison didn’t want a woman who looked stunning in a Bill Blass gown. He wanted a woman who looked good wearing an apron with cookie dough smeared on it. He wanted a woman who didn’t turn green at the mere mention of a boat—ship. Hell, what difference did it make what it was called? It was becoming plain that she wouldn’t need to know.

  And what about the beautiful love they’d made on the borrowed houseboat? A fond farewell, perhaps. A last good tumble. A memory gilded in the colors of a rainbow.

  There was one more date left on the list of events they had agreed to attend together: Dylan’s family reunion. After Sunday their contract would be up for renewal, but Alaina had the sinking feeling Dylan wasn’t going to pick up the option.

  She swallowed at the fist-sized lump that was stuck in her throat. A fine flame of anger burned off the haze of melancholy. Why the hell had she gone and fallen in love with that bar-and-bait-shop buffoon anyway? Hadn’t she made up her mind she was better off without love, without a man? She’d seen it happen time and again: Men did nothing but complicate a woman’s life.

  “He’s a royal pain in the patootie,” a little voice chirped.

  “You’ve got that right,” Alaina grumbled.

  “Gee, sweetie,” said the blue-haired little old lady seated before the desk. “It’s one thing for me to say so. I’m his granny, after all. I’m the one he’s barfed on at every major occasion of his life. It’s like his genes were programmed by that mother of his. She probably played subliminal messages to him when he was in her womb.”

  Alaina’s brows drew together, and she sat up straighter in her chair as her brain tried to push through the cotton-wool fog of distraction. “Dylan threw up on you?”

  “Dylan who?”

  “Who? Oh, please,” Alaina said with a groan. She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Don’t let’s start with the Abbott and Costello thing again. I’m really not up to it.”

  “Her biorhythms are all out of whack, Mrs. Bostwick,” Marlene said, barging into the office. She wore purple leggings and yards and yards of brilliant pink gauze sewn into a garment that looked as if it could have served double duty as a tunic or a circus tent. “Maybe you should come back in a day or two to discuss your grandson’s trust fund.”

  Alaina scowled at her secretary, a Doberman-like snarl rumbling behind her barred teeth. “Marlene …”

  Mrs. Bostwick turned in her chair. “You think she’ll be better by then?”

  Marlene waved a hand glowing with mood rings. “No sweat. Venus will be in Virgo. She’ll be in a mental upswing.”

  “I hope so,” Mrs. Bostwick said, pushing her tiny frame up out of the visitor’s chair, “because right now I’d have to say she’s a bubbleheaded bimbo.”

  Alaina’s spine straightened at the insult. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Come back on Monday,” Marlene instructed, not sparing her boss so much as a glance. “You’ll thank me for it, Hilda.”

  Steaming with indignation, Alaina watched her secretary usher the potential client out of her office.

  “Marlene, have you ever contemplated what it might be like to stand in the unemployment line?” she asked as Marlene pulled the door shut.

  “Nope. Have you ever contemplated what it might be like to live in San Francisco? Because there’s some anemic-looking guy in the outer office who claims you’re going to be moving there. My guess is he’s a Gemini. I wouldn’t trust him any farther than I could spit.”

  “What?” Alaina crossed the office to peek out the door. Skip Whittaker stood in the center of the reception area, looking around as if he smelled something nasty but was afraid to go looking for the source. She shut the door and stared hard at Marlene. “What did he tell you?”

  “He says you’re going to blow this podunk town and go back to practicing real law. He says you’re way too hungry to settle for crumbs when you could be getting a big slice of the financial pie.”

  Alaina arched a brow. Her voice was cold enough to inflict frostbite. “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah. And he doesn’t like the wallpaper in the foyer either.”

  Anger sizzled through Alaina. Real law. As if taking care of the legal needs of the people of Anastasia wasn’t worth opening her Louis Vuitton briefcase for. As if the only kind of law that mattered was going for the jugular in a case that meant megabucks and newspaper headlines. Well, that kind of law might have been fine for Horton “Skip” Whittaker III, but she’d had her fill of it.

  Marlene chuckled at the arctic-ice gleam in her boss’s eyes. “I knew it. The guy’s got the aura of a clam.”

  A malicious smile curved up the corner of Alaina’s mouth at the thought of Skip’s having Marlene read his aura. His skin was probably still crawling. “Give me a minute, then show Mr. Whittaker in, would you, Marlene?”

  “Do I get to watch you shred him to a bloody pulp with your rapier tongue?”

  Alaina gave her a look.

  Marlene shrugged. “Never hurts to ask.”

  When Skip sauntered in a moment later, Alaina was cool and composed. Her hair was combed neatly into its fifty-dollar style. Her black-rimmed glasses were perched on her nose. The padded shoulders of her tan Nicole Farhi suit jacket were squared back against her executive chair. She wore a cold smile and an extra spritz of killer French perfume. Adrenaline surged through her at the sight of her old schoolmate. A confrontation like this was precisely what she needed to snap out of her ennui, she decided.

  Marlene tucked a smug grin into one corner of her fleshy face. “Buzz me when the dust settles, boss.”

  Skip frowned and sidled away, his hands toying nervously with the sweater sleeves tied around his neck. Alaina decided he looked like something out of a prep school fashion manual—properly pressed khaki slacks, a white polo shirt with the appropriate reptile embro
idered on it, and a bilious-green cable-knit sweater draped over his shoulders. She instantly decided she preferred a man in rumpled chinos and a Bar and Bait Shop T-shirt, but that was beside the point.

  “Really, Alaina,” Skip drawled, his lip curling in affront. “That secretary of yours is some kind of lunatic. She tried to put her hands on my person! And there are people living in bus depots who dress better. Why do you put up with her?”

  “She’s my aunt,” Alaina said without hesitation, her malicious grin growing as a blush seeped into Skip’s pale cheeks. She lit a cigarette and watched him squirm while she stared at him and exhaled smoke. “Let’s cut to the chase, Skippy. What brings you to my podunk little town?”

  “See, Cleve, I told you that toy company would be a good investment.” Dylan tapped a forefinger to the figures glowing on his computer screen. “Their new line of computer games is going to be the hit of the Christmas season.”

  The big fisherman scratched at his whiskers as he leaned over the polished surface of the bar. “By golly, Dylan, you were right. I owe you. Let me buy you a Kool-Aid.”

  “Deal.”

  Stretching cramped shoulder muscles, Dylan pushed away from the terminal and stood up. He pulled off his reading glasses and set them aside as he poured himself a glass of the cherry-red drink he kept on hand for when the kids dropped in to visit him at work.

  It was a typical fall afternoon at the bar. A steady stream of locals and tourists kept the waitresses pleasantly busy. The door to the bait shop was opening and closing with profitable regularity as well. All was right with the world.

  Then why did he feel so lousy?

  A pair of exotic, arctic-blue eyes came immediately to mind. Alaina. Nothing had been the same between them since the trip to San Francisco. She was going to call it quits. He could feel it in his bones. One more item on the agenda of their contract, and he would have no more claim on her time—except for the fact that he was in love with her. All the scowling and snarling he’d done about that in the past few days hadn’t changed the fact of the matter. Like it or not, he was in love with Alaina Montgomery, consummate yuppie, and he was damned sick of mooning around about it, longing for the best and fearing the worst.

  He wanted more from her. The word marriage made him queasy, but that was the direction his heart was headed. He knew the rest of him and all of Alaina had a ways to go before they could broach the subject, but they had to start somewhere. Not breaking up seemed like a logical jumping-off point. The trouble was they had been skidding downhill ever since his foot-in-the-mouth performance at the dinner dance. He’d had no success in trying to show Alaina the error of her yuppie ways. In fact, she’d dug her Gucci pumps in even harder. According to Marlene, she was contemplating trading her Beemer in on a Mercedes, and she was going to have the office redone in a Southwestern motif.

  He was going to lose her completely if he didn’t do something soon.

  Dylan heaved a sigh and turned toward the big fisherman who leaned against the bar, nursing his beer. “Cleve? How do you handle women?”

  Cleve stole a glance at his waitress wife to make sure she was out of earshot, then pounded a huge fist on the bar. “You lay down the law. Then you duck, ’cause she’s sure to throw something at your head.”

  “Lay down the law,” Dylan mused. It sounded practical. He and Alaina had certainly done enough pussyfooting around, sniping at each other and pushing each other away when they should have been building on the fire that glowed between them in bed and the friendship they had kindled in saner moments. Lay down the law. Who better to understand the law than a lawyer?

  He would tell Alaina exactly how he felt, he thought, his palms breaking out in a cold sweat. And after she finished throwing things at him, they could discuss the possibility of extending their deal. Maybe she wasn’t ready for permanence and instant parenthood, but they could take their time moving toward that end. Maybe she’d tell him to take a flying leap, but at least all the cards would be on the table. The idea scared the hell out of him, but Cleve was right. It was time to fish or cut bait. If Alaina didn’t want him for something more serious than keeping company, then now was the time to find out, before Cori and Sam got too involved. His own heart was already lost. He was hoping Alaina’s was too.

  Neither of them had said a word about love. Love hadn’t been part of their deal. Love was something both of them had shied away from because of past hurts, but love was what was trying to take root in both their wary hearts. Dylan only hoped he could make Alaina see that. She was a cynic who’d seen nothing but the worst side of relationships. She had turned her nose up at the mention of marriage. But she was also the woman whose eyes were haunted with loneliness and longing, tenderness and vulnerability. Maybe if he had the courage to reach out to her, she would have faith enough to take his hand.

  He drank down his Kool-Aid in three big gulps, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and slammed the glass down on the bar. “Rita, cover for me!” he called.

  “Where are you going?” the waitress called back.

  “To lay down the law.”

  A plastic ashtray sailed across the room and bounced off Cleve’s head.

  Dylan headed up the street from the waterfront, his stride long and purposeful as he passed the picturesque shop fronts of Anastasia. The sun warmed his back through his faded chambray shirt and teased the red and gold lights out in his hair. His battered sneakers ate up the distance between himself and Alaina Montgomery.

  When he turned the corner off Main Street and started for the professional building where her office was located, a shiny yellow Mercedes caught his eye and some of the nerve he’d drummed up coagulated in his stomach. His step faltered, but he ignored the omen and flung open the door to the building.

  Marlene was leaning down close to her desktop listening intently to her intercom speaker. Her eyes rounded like quarters at the sight of Dylan.

  “Can I see Alaina?” he asked.

  “Hmmm …” Marlene gave him a shrewd look. “Unless she moves to San Francisco.”

  Dylan’s heart stopped. “Unless what?”

  “She’s just been offered a position at Victor-Ruthton, the Jaws of California corporate law sharks.”

  Everything inside him felt as if it had just been freeze-dried. One touch and he would shatter into a zillion shards. Alaina was being offered a position with a prestigious law firm in the city. Alaina, who prized her career and all the perks that accompanied it. Alaina, who valued social status and professional prominence. Alaina, who had stolen his heart despite the fact that she bore no resemblance to Donna Reed.

  Pain swirled through him like a hurricane—old pain and new pain, until one was indistinguishable from the other. All the old insecurities Veronica had left him with shot to the surface like heat-seeking missiles. Career women. They were the scourge of the Earth. Didn’t love mean anything to them? Was money really more attractive to them than motherhood? Did he have the word doormat stenciled across his forehead? He’d come here to throw his heart at Alaina’s feet. Now Marlene was telling him he could just as well have left it in San Francisco, because that was where Alaina was headed! When it came down to a choice between fame and fortune and Dylan Harrison, a career woman took the money and ran every time.

  Well, he wasn’t going to just stand back and wait for her to dump him on her way out of town. Not this time. This time he was going to get his licks in first. This time he was going to be the dumper, not the dumpee.

  Without a word to the secretary, he stormed the door to Alaina’s office, barging in with a frighteningly false smile on his face. “Skippy!” he crowed, slapping Whittaker on the back hard enough to knock a cough out of him. “Great to see you, Skipster, old pal.”

  “Dylan!” Alaina gaped at him. Emotions bombarded her like B-52s. There was a thrill at seeing him, a nervousness at the coldness of his brown eyes, and a sliver of anger at having been interrupted in the middle of telling Skip Whittaker to take a long walk off
a short pier. “What are you doing here?”

  He gave an elaborate shrug. “I just came to tell you your services won’t be necessary this Sunday. I can handle the Harrison crowd myself.”

  Alaina’s jaw dropped. He was kissing her off, calling it quits on their deal. Just like that. She sank back in her chair, setting her jaw at an angle maintained by pride alone. “I see,” she said softly.

  “It’s really not your kind of scene, anyway,” Dylan said, a razor-edge cutting each of his words. “A Bill Blass gown would be wasted on the Moose Hollow Harrisons.”

  She flinched a bit at the gibe, but somehow managed to find her voice through the haze of her pain. “So, the deal’s off, I take it?”

  “Yep. You’re free to pack and follow the rainbow to that cushy condo in Marin County, Princess.” He leaned across the desk, ruthlessly ignoring the soft allure of her perfume, and tapped a finger to the Crystal pin she wore on the lapel of her jacket. “Give me a call when you decide to part with this. I’d love to have it in my collection.”

  He turned and started for the door, pausing to flip the ends of Skip’s sweater sleeves. “Can’t find the neck of your sweater, eh, Skippy? Don’t worry. Sweater dyslexia is a temporary learning disability. You’ll snap out of it if your gross income dips below fifty grand.”

  Her breath frozen in her lungs, Alaina watched him walk out. She was stunned. Yes, she’d seen the end coming, but she hadn’t expected it to drop out of the sky and land on her like an anvil. Of all the low-down, sneaky strategies! The man was a rat! A brilliant, naturally devious rat! How dare he make her fall in love with him, and then dump her like so much flotsam or jetsam or whatever the hell it was people threw out of boats—ships—

  “Hold it right there, buster!” she demanded from the doorway of her office. Dylan turned and stared at her, his dark eyes hard, his jaw set. They faced each other like a pair of gunslingers. Halfway between them, Marlene sat behind her desk, as pale as a corpse. “You can’t just say so long and walk out on me.”