Keeping Company (6 page)

“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.”

The formalities were dispensed with quickly. Deputy Skreawupp seemed as eager to be rid of Alaina as Alaina was eager to get out of the jail—and out of Dylan Harrison’s tainted company. The instant the deputy told her she was free to go,
she turned on her glittery spike heel and marched for the door.

“What about Dylan?” Jayne asked, hesitating at the gate. She exchanged an odd look of concern with Arnie the Austrian Wookie.

Behind them, Dylan pressed the telephone receiver to his shoulder. His questioning gaze captured Alaina’s as she paused with her hand on the brass doorknob. “What time should I pick you up for dinner?”

“When hell freezes over!” she shouted, simply unable to restrain her temper another second.

Dylan frowned. “They only serve until ten.”

Why? Why were men such bastards? Not that it mattered to her personally, Alaina told herself. Not a bit. Not anymore. She was all through looking for the elusive Mr. Right. How long had her mother been on the hunt for him? Helene had gone through five husbands and who knew how many near-misters, and she was still looking. It was pointless. One had better odds of finding the
Holy Grail while on a tour of the Chicago sewer system.

Alaina sipped her Scotch and stared out the bay window. She was curled up on the window seat, wrapped in her gray silk dressing gown. Across from her, illuminated only by moonlight pouring in through the sheer curtains, was Julia, the petite black cat who had come with the duplex. Alaina had never been much for cats, but Julia, a very snobby superior feline, had simply ignored Alaina’s attempts to remove her from the house. Now she sat on the velvet cushion, meticulously cleaning her dainty paws, ignoring Alaina completely. Not to be outdone, Alaina ignored her right back.

Men were bastards because that was the way of the world. People were essentially selfish and greedy. Alaina had learned early on that the soundest philosophy a person could have was to look out for oneself, because nobody else gave a damn. Over the years she had found few exceptions to the rule.

Her friend Bryan had always frowned at her cynical analysis of the human race. Faith had been
sympathetic. Faith was always sympathetic; it was one of her most endearing qualities. Jayne had told her she didn’t know where the center of the Earth was. Jayne was such a flake.

Alaina had moved to Anastasia in part to be with her friends. They were the closest she had ever—or would ever—come to having a family. She was an only child, one who had not been planned for or welcomed into her parents’ lives. With Faith, Jayne, and Bryan, she had found a sense of belonging, a home for a heart that was far more fragile than she would ever let on.

Twelve years had passed since the Fearsome Foursome had first dreamed up the plan to move to this picture-postcard town on California’s northern coast. From the crossroads of their graduation they had all rushed off in different directions in pursuit of the perfect future. They had chased their rainbows, and what had they found at the end of them? Three of them had found disappointment in one form or another. Only Bryan was still off on the chase, traveling the world as a psychic investigator.

A long sigh escaped Alaina as she ran a hand
back through her dark hair and tilted her head back against the window frame. It was time to start over, time to put past disillusionments behind her and get her life back into tidy little compartments, the way she liked it. She was by nature a perfectionist, neat and analytical. That was the only sensible approach to life. Emotional entanglements were messy and painful as a rule, so she generally avoided them.

She had her small circle of friends. She had a nice home impeccably decorated with tasteful art deco–style furniture. She had financial security, which was basically the only kind of security she’d ever had. And soon she would have her own law practice, where she could follow her own code of ethics and choose her own clients. It was practically the ideal existence.

She was absolutely
not
looking for a relationship.

But as she stared out into the night and secretly acknowledged the too familiar pang of loneliness in her heart, she thought it might have been nice to go dancing.

“Marlene, I really don’t see the need for this line ‘Astrological Sign’ on the client information form,” Alaina said, congratulating herself on her patience. She put the form back on the stack on her secretary’s desk, crossed her arms over her blue silk designer T-shirt, and calmly awaited a comment from the woman.

Marlene Desidarian paused in her task of driving a nail in the wall behind her desk to shoot her boss a look. “You’ll thank me for it,” she said in a voice that made Roseanne Barr sound like a songbird. “Well be able to tell at a glance how compatible they’re going to be with your personality.”

“All I really need to know is whether or not I’m interested in their case, and whether or not they can pay me.”

“Capricorns,” Marlene muttered disparagingly as she turned and gave the nail a good thump.

Compromise, Alaina knew, was an unpleasant but necessary fact of life. It was a word she despised but lived with. Sometimes a person simply had to trade off one priority to achieve another. Marlene Desidarian was a living example of this law at work in her life.

Marlene might have been fifty or she might have been sixty. It was difficult to tell, and she was creatively evasive when questioned about it—a skill Alaina herself cultivated, so she let the issue slide. Marlene was tall and built like a side-by-side refrigerator. Her fading silver-blond hair fell down her back in a long, utilitarian braid, and she dressed like a hippy. She was an enthusiastic student of astrology and mythology and auras and karmas and all of the same goofy mystical California nonsense Jayne Jordan was into.

For these reasons Alaina would ordinarily have avoided Marlene, but Marlene could also
type a hundred and ten words a minute, and she had a forbidding look that could stop an office supplies salesman in his tracks at twenty yards.