Waking Up (3 page)

The evening was balmy and clear, though windy enough for her to be thankful that she had thought to bring her white jacket. The stars were visible in abundance, and the trip back was made with low, soothing music played over Ian’s excellent car stereo. She allowed her head to loll back on the seat and her mind to roam dreamily. He pulled into her driveway, turned off the engine, and tilted his dark head towards her with a gentler version of that wicked smile. He reached out and took her hand, playing with her fingers. “Thank you,” he said, and she looked startled, then laughed.

“Good heavens, Ian, that’s supposed to be my line!”

“That may be, madam, but I enjoyed your company, so I thank you for it,” he retorted. She smiled back at him through the duskiness, feeling a bit uneasy for some odd reason. She waited patiently for the moment when she could draw her hand away without hurting his feelings or appearing rude. “I want to see you next week,” Ian continued softly.

“That would be nice,” she replied as quietly. Why, for heaven’s sake, was she feeling so self-conscious and uncomfortable? They had lingered like this many times before. She ran her gaze over the darkness of the house, knowing her father would have gone to bed long before.

“I’m going to be out of town for a while, but I’ll give you a call when I get back, all right?”

“That sounds good,” she murmured, only half her attention on him.

Suddenly she knew why she felt uncomfortable. The lights in the front room at the Morrows’ house were on, and apparently Jason was up late. She felt stupid at being bothered by that, but she was.

Ian drew near, bending his head slowly. He pressed his lips to hers gently, time and time again, tantalizingly brushing her mouth, one hand going to her long, slim neck to stroke lightly. She tried very hard to feel natural. Certainly she had responded normally, with pleasure, in the past. But her heart wasn’t in it. It didn’t feel right. She felt stilted and awkwardly shy.

Somehow she made it through decently enough and said her good nights. Soon she was locking the front door behind her and leaning against it with an explosive sigh. She felt like an idiot and fervently hoped that Ian couldn’t tell that anything was wrong. She liked him too much and she wanted him to call back.

She thrust away from the front door and paced through the darkened first floor of her home restlessly, berating herself about how stupidly she had acted over a mere coincidence. As she passed through the kitchen, which faced the Morrows’ house, she glanced out exasperatedly to the object of her frustration and stopped dead. She didn’t know why it bothered her to find that the living room light was off now and that the front of the house was quite dead. For a mere coincidence, it bothered her very much.

Chapter Two

The next morning, Robbie dragged herself out of bed reluctantly and dressed in ragged jean shorts that had been washed so many times they were nearly white, along with a brief, light blue tank top that showed a great deal of her slim, dark brown arms and shoulders. Then she went downstairs to the kitchen. The house was already quite warm, hinting of the summer heat yet to come that day. She opted for a glass of orange juice and a glass of iced tea instead of her usual cup of coffee. She was a habitual late riser, since her job entailed late nights. It was sometimes as late as two o’clock before she went to bed, and so her days started at around nine or ten.

After sitting at the breakfast table and reading the Sunday paper, she rose to halfheartedly clean a few of the downstairs rooms, and then when she had appeased her conscience for the day, she found the paperback she was currently reading and went outdoors.

This time, instead of settling in the sun, she arranged the lounge chair under the shade of a mature maple tree and composed herself on it to enjoy a leisurely reading session.

Herb went to church every Sunday, and Robbie was hard put to decide whether the attraction was purely religious or if it had anything to do with the lovely widow who attended regularly and in whom her father had shown an increasing interest lately. She had fallen out of the habit of attending church when she had started her job; more often than not, she worked on Saturday evenings and found that after eight to ten hours of sheer, hard physical work, it was too hard to drag herself out of bed after only five or six hours’ sleep.

Movement from the Morrows’ lawn drew her gaze, and she looked over to see Jason clipping energetically at the long row of hedge that lined the house. He was dressed as he had been the afternoon before, in faded cut-offs, which resembled hers, and nothing else, his bare, broad shoulders flexing sinuously in rhythm as he worked the shears.

Though it was quite hot, he was relentless, and after a time she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as she imagined the trickles of sweat that must be slipping down his torso, along with the ache in his upper arms. Perhaps he wouldn’t feel it quite as much as she would, as he was obviously more powerful, but she put her book down anyway and ran lightly inside to pour him a glass of the iced tea she had made that morning. Then she strolled back outside and over to his lawn.

If he knew of her approach, he didn’t show it, whistling soundlessly, through his teeth as he worked. She watched him silently for a few moments, fascinated by the rippling display of sleek, well-honed muscle under the silken-smooth, dark skin. She couldn’t believe how he had managed to become such a marvelously well-endowed male without her having realized it.

She almost put her hand out to stroke at the lovely, powerful back. Catching herself with an obvious start, she cleared her throat and said to him, “Here, drink this before I have to watch you collapse with heat stroke.”

Jason spun around to face her, brows mildly raised. At the sight of the tall, frosted cold glass, his white teeth flashed quick and bright. “Why thank you, sweetheart,” he said lightly, and took the glass from her to empty in one long, thirst-satiating drink. His head was tilted back, light brown hair tangled and falling from his strong forehead, long throat muscles working. Robbie’s gaze slithered down his throat and then automatically went over the flat, broad expanse of his trim chest and waist. A very light sprinkling of silky hair salted that area, narrowing to a sleek arrow that plunged into his shorts, which were slung low on his slim hips.

Her glance skittered away, and she looked at his lean face and found him regarding her quizzically, questioningly, light eyes vivid. He cradled the glass in his long fingers and swished the ice cubes around. “How was your evening last night?” he asked.

She shrugged and shifted her feet restlessly. “It was fine,” she replied offhandedly. “We ate out and had a leisurely drive back. It wasn’t anything especially different, but it was quite nice.”

He nodded, and tilted his head sideways to squint up at the cloudless, brilliant sun-filled sky. With a great, heaving sigh, he raised one wrist to wipe his damp forehead and said, “I must be out of my mind to be doing this now.” As she agreed privately, he looked at her with a neat turn of his head, and commented very casually, “That Walsh fellow is a bit older than you.”

Robbie had rather expected something like that from him and she felt a flush of resentment rise to her face, much to her annoyance. “He’s in his thirties,” she said, the shortness of her tone a warning.

Jason grunted and threw her a look from under his level brows. Then he smiled unexpectedly. She felt taken aback, as it was particularly sweet. “He seems like a nice man, Rob. Thanks for the tea.”

He handed her the glass with something of a shove, as she murmured that he was welcome and not to mention it, her fingers colliding with his longer, hard ones before she managed to grasp hold of the round, slippery shape without dropping it. She stared at him blankly as he gave her a roguish wink and turned back to his work clipping away busily and whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world, which she supposed was the case. She regarded him for a moment or two, with a deep frown between her brows, and then she whirled away to stride back into the house to deposit the glass in the sink. Oddly enough, since she’d been expecting some kind of criticism from him about the obvious differences between Ian and herself, she actually felt let down.

It was a silly reaction to a silly subject. She shrugged jerkily and resolved to dismiss the whole thing from her mind. It appeared that Jason was learning that he had no say about whom she dated after all.

She had to work that evening, and after spending the afternoon reading in the shade, she went inside to shower and change into her work clothes. The uniform that the waitresses were supposed to wear was not strict; they had matching blouses which they could wear with any dark skirt of their choice, along with stylish yet comfortable shoes. Once at work, she would don a pretty yet serviceable apron, in which she could hold her tips, a handful of handy match books, and her pad and pen. Since today was Sunday, the restaurant closed two hours early, and so she could look forward to being home at a decent time tonight.

She searched for her father, kissed him good night, and then headed to the double garage to climb into her Volvo. A quickly depressed control button and a moment’s patient waiting had the door humming up silently behind her. Herb had insisted on automatic controls for the garage doors. That way, she needn’t step out of her car until she was safely inside, since the garage was connected to the small family room. Her father was a very heavy sleeper and never awakened when she arrived home late at night.

Robbie backed down the driveway, pausing only to make sure that the door slid down properly after her, before she glanced over to the Morrows’ house. Jason was trimming a large bush in the front garden, and she half-lifted her hand as if to wave at him, but he didn’t look her way. She let her hand drop to the wheel, then, and backed until she could pull around in the large circle of pavement which was the end of their cul-de-sac. She pulled away.

Unknown to her, Jason straightened from his work and stared after her disappearing car, his light eyes shaded by one long-fingered hand, his face inscrutable.

Work started well enough. She waited on a family of five as soon as she arrived, and they were particularly nice, leaving her a substantial tip. Then she had a series of couples, as most of the tables in the station allotted to her were for two. The cooks were in rare form, without a single squabble amongst them the entire evening. Usually they fought like squawking chickens, their regulation white hats bobbing and weaving emphatically. The night manager, a handsome, distinguished-looking man, disappeared as was his habit when things were going well. When she carried out one couple’s meal, she found that her once-vacant larger table had been filled with several chattering young women. The hostess had set them up with water glasses and menus, and so after serving the couple with their order, she stopped to talk pleasantly for a moment or two with the group. The women appeared to be in fine spirits, which lent itself to a good experience for all concerned, and as Robbie excused herself and made her way towards the back again, she found that Ian had been quietly seated at one of the empty tables for two.

A smile of pleasure lit her face and she bid him a quiet greeting as she passed his table with the promise of coming back soon to take his order. He let his face crease into a lovely, welcoming smile for her and told her he was in no hurry, as he sent a quick look over to her large table.

After she had taken the women’s orders, all separate tickets, of course, she sped to the back to put the tickets up, stopped at the bar to pick up their drinks and then served them with a quick word and a smile. She hurried over to Ian, laughing and exaggeratedly breathless.

“I thought you were going to be leaving,” she said, smiling down at his dark, handsome countenance.

His smile, accompanied by the warm, sparkling look in his eyes made her feel very good indeed. “I leave tomorrow,” he said, closing the menu and setting it aside. “So I thought I would come and see you before I went.”

She nodded, pleased with the words whether he’d meant them or not. “Well, I’m glad you did,” she told him. She gestured quickly to the menu. “Have you decided what you’d like?”

“No, I haven’t,” he said, leaning his elbows on the table and looking up at her, dark head tilted. “Just give me the usual, I suppose.” She nodded again and jotted down the name of his favorite seafood dish, along with his normal drink. Ian was very much a creature of habit. “Are you busy this weekend?” he asked.

“I work Saturday since I had time off last night, but I’m off Sunday,” she said, her head bent, brown hair gleaming shiny and smooth in the muted lighting. She looked up unexpectedly from under her brows, and found him casting an appreciative eye at the young women at her large table, which made her grin. She was under no illusions about Ian, for all that she liked him. He was definitely one to cast his net far and wide.

He turned his attention back to her, realized that he had been caught, and grinned unashamedly. “Shall we plan to do something on Sunday, then?” he asked her. “I can call later on in the week for more definite plans, if you would like.”

“That’ll be fine,” she assured him, eyes twinkling. Then she excused herself, checked on her other tables, and went to the back to see if any of her orders were nearing completion.

Slightly later, while she was taking a quick break and talking briefly to another waitress, a likeable woman and one of her favorite coworkers, she happened to look up to her right. Across the restaurant, just being seated, was Jason along with an incredibly beautiful brunette. Robbie stopped short and stared. It was not all that unusual, for nearly everyone in the restaurant was turning to look at the tall, slim couple as they took their seats. Jason looked distinguished and remote in his well-fitting, elegant dark suit while the woman was a perfect foil for him, being raven-haired and wearing a very simple, very lovely crimson dress, which seemed to shimmer slightly in the light, calling attention to the slim yet lush curves of her white-limbed body.