Waking Up (2 page)

It was his turn to shrug. “Just checking for the bags under your eyes,” he replied, sweetly.

He stayed for a few more minutes, though they didn’t talk much. Then after a while, he rose, told her to behave herself, to which Robbie didn’t deign to reply, and as he walked away, she turned her head to watch.

Jason broke into an easy, hip-swinging lope and then gathered his lean body and leaped over the thigh-high fence which separated the Morrows’ yard from theirs. It was one fluid, athletic motion, and she briefly, dispassionately admired his animal grace. Then she grinned reminiscently. She could remember how proud she’d been of herself when she had finally screwed up enough courage to try to leap that fence. Jason had bet her a dollar that she couldn’t, to which she had responded with gritty determination. Afterwards, when she’d cleared it by a good three inches, he had strutted around telling everyone, as pleased with her as if he’d done it himself.

The sun soon lost its attraction, for her eyes began to ache from the glare, and then started to throb, so she forsook the lounge chair to wander listlessly inside. There she poured herself another lemonade from a gallon pitcher and shook out a few aspirin which they kept in a cupboard. She downed them along with half the lemonade at one go. In the summer, she always drank lots of liquid and cut back on food, as she lost her appetite in humid heat.

The rest of the afternoon stretched ahead of her, with no energy or obligations to fill it. Her limbs felt heavy and slick with the oil, so she trod upstairs to shower with cool, refreshing water, which revived her somewhat. Then she made her way to her bedroom and sat in front of her large open window, brushing at her dripping hair.

Falling into a brood that afternoon seemed easy. Her lower lip thrust out slowly, and her sleek, well-defined brows drew together as her hand rose more and more slowly to run the brush through her thick, wet locks. Maybe Jason was right, and that was why he had upset her so much. Maybe she was unwilling to face her own future. She was already twenty-two years old. Jason had graduated the summer of his twenty-second year, with the security of knowing he already had a good job waiting for him. A lot of people with whom she had gone to high school were graduating from college and shooting off to find their dreams. And what was she doing with herself? Where was she heading?

Certainly, there was nothing wrong with waitressing. That simply wasn’t the point. She liked it well enough, didn’t dread going to work, and in four nights she could make well over three hundred dollars in tips. She didn’t have to pay any rent as she still lived with her father, and though she helped with buying groceries, that expense was relatively minimal. All she did was go to work in the evenings, amuse herself during the day, date occasionally, and put her money in a bank account. Though she had a nice nest egg built up, she had no goals, nothing to look forward to, not even an exotic vacation planned for herself.

Robbie sighed heavily and put her hair brush down on the windowsill, hardly aware that she lined it up carefully with the sill’s edge. This depression threatened to get serious. What she needed was something to spark her interest, something to liven up her life and put some zest back into her days. She needed something to make her feel feisty and mischievous, to bring back the Robbie she used to be.

The Robbie she used to be. That brought a wry, acknowledging twist to her lips. The tree-climbing, sarcastic, skinny little brat she used to be. She was still sarcastic. At least she wasn’t quite as skinny any longer, having filled out slightly in places she thought she never would, though she was still quite slim. But somewhere the fire was gone, for there was nothing to get fired up about these days.

She’d always been something of a crusader. When her father and she had first moved into the neighborhood after her mother had died, she had gone around for months with a major chip on her shoulder. She had been angry with the world. She hated Ohio, and Cincinnati was putting insult to injury. She wanted to move back east, where all her friends were. The boy next door was a snotty-nosed kid who teased her at every opportunity and the school she had to go to was the absolute pits.

She was the new girl, the silent one, the girl who got teased, the outsider. Then one day at lunch break, two girls and a boy had been giving her a hard time, with the hooting derision that only children could, while she tried desperately to ignore them and prevent herself from breaking into tears. A sudden dusty whirlwind had descended on the four of them. It had been that insufferable brat, Jason, who chased the boy away and jeered at the two girls, saying such vile things that they ran off in embarrassment while Robbie had stood staring, speechless with admiration at his remarkably foul mouth. She could still remember how he had told her, very indifferently, that while he could and would tease her all he liked, nobody else would, and that was all there was to it.

They became a pair. When one thought up a scheme, the other always staunchly went along with it. Even when Jason left elementary school for junior high, they got together in the afternoons. He taught her how to throw a deadly softball. One year they slipped outside late at night to get into mischief, and only got caught towards the end of summer. They made up secret codes and found extraordinary hiding places to put messages. They squabbled, made up with a studious disinterest, and fiercely stuck up for one another. They were best friends.

Femininity came late for Robbie. She was never Roberta, and most often just Rob. Without a mother’s influence, her teens were rather painful and self-conscious, and she made a crusade out of ignoring boys and the girls who primped and preened for their attention. Jason was more important to her than she would have admitted to anyone. To Jason, she was just herself. He didn’t give a hoot if she had dirt on her nose, scratches on her legs, or grass in her hair. Granted, he never commented on the rare occasions when she dressed up either, but that was what she had liked about him. He went away to school when she was sixteen, and only then did she begin to concentrate on learning how to look attractive to the opposite sex. Time trickled by.

That was the problem, she reflected broodingly. Time always seemed to be just slipping by, and she wasn’t doing anything about it. She was just letting herself grow older.

She shook herself free of her introspection and checked her bedside alarm clock to find that she should have begun dressing some time ago. With a moan, she flew into action and scrabbled for her new light green summer dress, with the tailored waist and slim skirt. That, along with a severely cut white jacket in case the evening cooled later on, and white, slim-heeled sandals was her outfit. She let her straight brown hair swing free and simple and emphasized the largeness of her dark eyes with smoky shadow and mascara. That, along with blusher on her cheekbones and lip color on her full lips, completed her toilette, and she hurried downstairs as it was nearly six.

Her face being characterized by a pert nose and strongly defined, sleek brows made her more interesting and attractive rather than simply beautiful, and she had tailored her wardrobe to suit her lanky looks, going for sleek, streamlined styles and severe cuts that emphasized her figure best. As a result she was rather striking, and no one was to know that she secretly deplored the fact that she couldn’t wear the froth and frills that some women could.

Now that she was actually upon this evening, having spent the afternoon in a somewhat glum reminiscence, she was looking forward to her date. She had to grimace briefly for she knew that Jason wouldn’t approve of the man she was seeing, and that had been the reason why she had been so reticent. Not that his opinion mattered all that much to her. Oh no, it was just that she knew Ian Walsh wasn’t the kind of man that Jason would have liked her to associate with. Jason was simply going to have to realize that she now made character judgments and life decisions on her own.

She had teased Jason about being the free, swinging bachelor type because she knew he didn’t like it. And, she had to admit, Ian probably fitted that description as well as any man. But he was so amusing, so interesting and lively and attentive, so damned good-looking that she couldn’t resist going out with him. She liked him. He was dark, powerfully built, and in his early thirties, with a lovely, wicked smile that could charm honey away from killer bees. He also travelled a lot with his job, but he never failed to call her whenever he was in town, and she had been seeing him for a few months now. Her mood shifted even further, and she became quite cheerful. Tonight Ian was taking her out to eat, and as his taste was always impeccable, she knew that she could relax and look forward to the meal with enjoyment. Being a waitress herself, she appreciated being waited on. She had met Ian at work. He had dined at one of her tables one fine spring evening, and soon he seemed to be coming in every week. It was some time before the hostess told her that he had been requesting her station specifically. Close on the heels of that revelation, he had asked her out, and that was how she had started seeing him.

She went into the kitchen to see if her father had started any supper for himself and found spaghetti sauce bubbling away on the stove, so she stirred it. Then she hurried along the hall to the living room, hoping Ian hadn’t arrived yet and was waiting for her.

Ian hadn’t, but keeping her father company, while lounging comfortably on the sofa, was Jason, looking rather alien in clothes slightly more formal than the jeans and cut-offs in which she was used to seeing him. She stopped in surprise at seeing him and then advanced slowly into the room.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, not particularly worried about tact.

The twist of his well-cut lips showed that he was aware of it, but as he let his eyes travel in leisurely appreciation of her figure, he answered her in all seriousness. “I’m keeping your father company for supper tonight.”

“Oh.” A moment while she digested this, shifting uneasily under his all too obvious stare, and then she looked to Herb Fisher, who was at his ease in his favorite armchair. “Hi, Dad. How was the golf course?”

“Too damned crowded,” he grunted, and gave her a lopsided grin. “But I was three under par, which made up for it.”

She gave a low whistle, while dropping her handbag to a nearby table. “I’ll say. Congratulations. I bet Jim Dennison was green with envy.”

Her father chuckled his satisfaction. “He wasn’t speaking much as we left the course, so I couldn’t say.”

She laughed, and went over to the front window to check the driveway. As she let the curtain fall back into place, Jason said silkily, “I can’t wait to meet your date. He will come to the door, won’t he?” His tone implied that he believed the worst.

She eyed him with disfavor. “I was considering running out before he could,” she retorted, which made him grin, light gray yes dancing merrily.

Their driveway was concrete all the way to the road, with no gravel to herald the arrival of a car. All she heard was a low purr just before the car’s engine was turned off, and before she could go out to meet Ian, he was getting out of the car and coming towards the house. Jason rose smoothly to his feet and beat her to the door, pure devilment sparkling in his eyes at her exasperation.

He opened the door and said cordially, “Hello, won’t you come in? You’re Rob’s date, I believe?”

Robbie stood back, smiling slightly as Ian looked at her from under his straight black brows and then back to Jason to smile coolly. “Yes,” he agreed, his voice cultured and smoothly polite. “I am.” He turned to Herb. “Hello, Mr. Fisher, how are you? You’re looking good.”

“Thank you, sir,” said her father, lazily from his chair. “I’m feeling good.”

Ian turned back to her and smiled, slow and sweet, into her eyes. She let her eyes twinkle back at him, while Jason stood back and observed them both dispassionately. “Are you ready?” asked Ian, and she nodded, reaching for her bag.

“No need to leave, yet,” said Jason easily, and she could have turned around to kick him. Out of her sight, her father just settled back and looked on, as peaceful as a baby. “Stay and have a drink.”

Ian let his eyebrows rise slightly as he looked to her for confirmation. She said firmly, “I’m ready to go.”

“Then we’ll be passing on that drink tonight,” said Ian to Jason, smiling wickedly. “Good evening, gentlemen.”

As he held back to let her precede him, she couldn’t resist throwing a glare at Jason for his behavior, but she could have predicted the result. He raised his brows in bland, mocking reply behind Ian’s left shoulder and let her glare bounce off him.

In the car, as Ian pulled out of the driveway, he said casually, “By the way, who was that? Have I met him?”

She looked out of the passenger window so that he couldn’t see her face. “No,” she replied with a sigh. “You haven’t. He’s our neighbor. I grew up with him.”

She could sense the appraising look he threw at her, along with the slightly amused smile that played on his refined lips. “Odd fellow,” he said laconically.

“He’s set himself up as my big brother for about ten years, now,” she told him, somewhat unfairly, and couldn’t help but smile then. “Please don’t take offence.”

At that, he laughed. “Oh, no. I would never do that. Your big brother, eh? How interesting.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Nothing,” he said cheerfully. “Absolutely nothing.” Then, with another of his lovely smiles, “I hope you’re hungry tonight. I find that I’m quite starved.”

She enjoyed the evening. Ian was his usual charming, attentive self. She laughed and said all the right things, and appreciated the good food and service. Maybe, she mused into her wineglass, maybe this was what was lacking in her life, an exciting, romantic man who stimulated her senses and pleasantly thrilled her with his attention.