Forbidden Stranger

by Marilyn Pappano

  Truth was, breaking up was good for the case. He would lose her as his buffer, but what she might learn by insinuating herself more closely with the dancers was more important than helping him resist his personal temptations.

  “Okay,” he agreed. “But you’ll stay at the apartment.”

  “Yee-ah,” she said in a nice imitation of the younger dancers’ sarcasm. “I don’t want anyone here knowing where I really live. I’ll tell Amanda tonight. And I’m going out with Eternity and Monique again tonight. Okay?”

  When he nodded, she squeezed his hand, then returned to her table, greeting several girls on the way. She was going to fit in here better than anyone had imagined.

  And him? His life was about to get a whole lot harder.

  Chapter 6

  W hen break time came, Amanda headed for her tiny closet at the back of the building. Her reading glasses and book were already on the table. She set down two miniature candy bars and a bottle of water, removed her eight-inch heels and sat on the chaise with a sigh.

  It had been a good night. It was only a little more than half over and she’d already pocketed more than eight hundred dollars in tips. But for a nickel, she’d go home right then and spend the next two hours in a hot bath. Then she smiled wryly. Sure, she would. This job was all about the money and saving enough of it to have the life she’d always wanted. There was no such thing as too much money.

  She looked at the glasses and the book, then reached for one of the candy bars. Chocolate was surely the next best thing in the world to dancing. And sex. And personal satisfaction. It was a shame that, in quantity, it went straight to her hips, a bigger shame that the time when hips were a good thing was long past.

  After peeling open the wrapper, she took one sweet, luscious bite and the door opened, catching her in the act. Expecting Rick, she was tempted to swallow without savoring, but she resisted. Good thing, since it wasn’t Rick.

  Julia stood in the doorway, her pose amazingly casual for the uptight woman she’d been just a few days earlier. “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” Amanda wasn’t in the mood to read anyway. Chewing the candy slowly, she swung her feet to the floor and made room for Julia to join her on the chaise.

  Instead of lounging back as Amanda did, Julia sat on the edge of the cushion, feet together, spine straight. Amanda had never seen her slump or slouch. That must have been some ballet teacher, for her lessons to have stuck so long.

  “Rick and I broke up.”

  The announcement came as Amanda was swallowing and she choked, coughing hard before gulping down a mouthful of water.

  Julia absently patted her on the back. “It’s been coming for a while. We’ve been together a long time and we’ve gotten pretty platonic. We thought moving in together might fix whatever was wrong, but I’ve had my own room the whole time. We’re just not relating.”

  After another sip of water, Amanda said, “I’m sorry.” She was, even though a small devil was doing cartwheels in her stomach.

  “Oh, don’t be. I’m not.” Finally Julia slid back, relaxing against the wall. “I’m relieved. I like Rick a lot and I’d rather end it now when we can still be friends. The last guy I broke up with—I used his photograph for target practice at the gun range. I would have shot him for real if I’d thought I could get away with it. He was scum.”

  After a moment, Amanda said, “You don’t seem at all upset about this breakup.”

  “No, really, I’m not. We’ve been living pretty much as roommates for a while. In fact, now we really will be roommates. I plan to stay at the apartment until I find a new place to live.”

  Amanda thought back to her few serious relationships. While she’d never wanted to drill her exes’ pictures with bullet holes, they hadn’t been friends before they started dating and there had certainly been no reason to become friends after they’d stopped. She couldn’t imagine continuing to live together. She would rather sleep in her car.

  Though, since she would never give up her house for any man, she wouldn’t have to worry about that. She would just kick his ass out.

  “Hey, we’re going out tonight to celebrate my freedom,” Julia said. “Want to go?”

  “You and Rick?”

  “No.” Of course not, her tone said. “Eternity, Monique, Rica and that cute little girl who makes me look like a bean pole.”

  “Halle,” Amanda supplied. She was twenty-four, although she looked younger, and only a few inches over five feet, but with curves that could make any man dizzy.

  “Yeah, Halle. Want to join us?”

  “No, thanks. I took myself off the party circuit a long time ago,” Amanda said, but her thoughts were elsewhere. What about Rick? How would he celebrate his freedom? Hitting the clubs, drinking, maybe picking up a pretty stranger? He’d been saying no to all the dancers ever since he’d come to work at Almost Heaven. Would he surprise one of them by finally saying yes?

  Would he say yes to Amanda?

  No, because she wasn’t asking. She wasn’t interested in a long-term relationship and she’d taken herself off the casual-flings circuit a long time ago. Even if she wanted either, she had no desire to be any man’s rebound lover.

  “I’d better get back to work,” she said, strapping on her shoes again. “You guys have fun—and don’t overdo it. Your audition’s tomorrow.”

  Julia flushed, but managed a smile, too. “I’m almost starting to look forward to it.”

  “You’ll do fine.” Amanda’s friend had told her that at her own audition twelve years ago and it had gone without a hitch. She’d been scared, but overall it had been painless. “You were great at the house yesterday afternoon.”

  “From your lips to Harry’s ears.” Julia raised both hands, fingers crossed, then led the way from the room. As Amanda switched off the light and closed the door, Julia said, “I really think you should consider doing something with Rick tonight. Have a late dinner or an early breakfast…or a late breakfast.”

  Amanda laughed. “You’re trying to set your ex up with someone else on the same night you became exes?”

  “Not someone else. You. You’re special.”

  Unexpectedly Amanda’s eyes grew damp. The only person besides her father who had ever told her that was Robbie Calloway, and he’d been lying. The whole time he was being so sweet to her, spending time with her, he’d been telling lies about her. He was the one who’d started calling her Randy Mandy. He was the one who’d made her school life miserable.

  But Rick wasn’t like his brother. She’d learned a lot about men since Robbie and she knew Rick was a good one. No doubt, he’d broken plenty of hearts, but he didn’t do it with deceit and cruelty. He didn’t do it for fun. Julia said she would trust him with her life.

  Easier to trust someone with your life than with your heart.

  “Thanks. It’s nice to be popular.” Though she smiled, long-ago bitterness stirred inside her. The cool kids in school hadn’t known her name until Robbie made a fool of her, but she was popular here. Men liked her so damn much they visited regularly to ogle her body and to buy a little of her time.

  And though she was anything but cheap, at that very moment, she felt it.

  She and Julia separated once they returned to the bar. She made eye contact with each man she passed, smiling at them, getting smiles and assessing looks in return. A man sitting alone at a table in the middle of the room gave her the smile, the look, then laid a fifty-dollar bill on the table.

  She sat down, scooping up the money and tucking it away in one long, smooth move. “Hi, I’m Amanda.”

  His name was Bradley, and he was in town for a convention. He was good-looking, probably around fifty, and wore an expensive suit, expensive cologne and a wedding ring on his left hand. He was like a thousand other customers before him: he liked to talk about himself, he was generous with his money and probably little, if any, of what he said was true.

  But she listened, smiling, nodding, making him feel as if he were the o
nly thing of interest in her life at that moment. And he was. He’d bought her time, which meant he’d also bought her attention. But that didn’t keep her from noticing Rick behind the bar or from feeling his gaze slide over her again and again.

  You really should consider doing something with Rick tonight. Did he know Julia was trying to find him a date? Probably not. He didn’t need any help in that arena. He was gorgeous, sexy, had a killer body and, for people who cared about those sorts of things, came from a proud and very successful Georgia family. He was small-town royalty.

  She didn’t care about those sorts of things.

  She finished her time with Bradley, danced another set, then spent an hour with a grandfatherly type who was lonely rather than a lech. He came to the club twice a month, dropped a bundle on Amanda and Eternity and left smiling. Who said money couldn’t buy happiness?

  On Friday and Saturday nights, the club stayed open until three. Amanda was grateful when closing time arrived. Pretty much everything on her hurt, she reflected as she changed into street clothes and blessed flats. Julia again extended the invitation to celebrate with her, and Amanda again turned her down. She couldn’t have partied tonight for love or money—and she was a person who knew the value of both.

  “Have fun and be careful,” she said as she slung her duffel strap over her shoulder.

  “Eternity will see that she gets home safe and sound,” Eternity said with a lecherous smile and a wink.

  Amanda said goodbye and left the building, breathing the cool, humid air deeply. She loved Atlanta. Loved the crowdedness, the endless choices of things to do. Loved the Old South graciousness and the opportunities and the beauty. Loved that it wasn’t Copper Lake. If she’d had to stay in her hometown, she wouldn’t have survived. Couldn’t have.

  She smelled Rick before she saw him, saw him before she heard him. He was leaning against his car, parked next to hers. The street lamp above buzzed and drew a cloud of insects, turning him into an intriguing form of light and shadow, showing his somber expression.

  She watched him a moment, barely able to hear his slow, steady breathing, but she didn’t speak and neither did he. After a time, she got into her car, well aware that he was moving to get into his. She started the engine and felt the powerful rumble of his as it roared to life. She drove out of the parking lot, knowing that he was behind her, that he would follow her home.

  He did.

  She let Dancer out, then flipped off the light switch. As Rick climbed the steps to the porch, she sat down in the swing that hung at one end. He sat at the other end, leaving enough room for another person between them, and he gazed off into the dark.

  Every house on the block was dark except for the porch lights and the occasional flood lamp. None of her neighbors lived a nocturnal life, though old Mr. Bennington did have a tendency to get up around one in the morning to sneak a forbidden snack from his wife’s kitchen. She fussed at him for doing it, and he fussed back at her for not letting him have sweets during the day. Amanda had never heard a conversation between them where the subject didn’t come up, but their marriage was going on sixty-five years. They were doing something right.

  Would she have that kind of luck? Would she ever have a marriage at all?

  Her gaze slanted toward Rick.

  For distraction, she said the first thing that came to her. “Julia told me about you two. Sorry.”

  He was already distracted. When he turned to her, his expression was puzzled. “What about us?”

  “That you’d broken up.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Thanks.”

  Oh. Yeah. Thanks? What kind of response was that?

  Okay, so Amanda didn’t understand his and Julia’s relationship. She’d thought that they were a tad unconventional, but apparently there had been less to the relationship than she’d assumed. She just naturally associated long-term with love and commitment. Not everyone else did.

  Lucky for her, in this case.

  Dancer came onto the porch, her steps delicate in spite of her size. She nuzzled Amanda’s leg, then sniffed Rick intently before resting her head on his knees, staring up at him with her gorgeous brown eyes. “Geez, dog, why don’t you just climb on up in my lap?” he grumbled.

  “Don’t invite—”

  Too late. With one sleek, powerful jump, Dancer bounded onto his lap, turned on the unsteady surface of his thighs, then plopped down, her head leaning against his chest, her lips curled back in what Amanda was sure was a grin.

  “You’re not a dog person, are you?” she asked as he stared down at forty pounds of puppy.

  “Not so you’d notice.”

  “Dancer, come here,” she scolded.

  The dog lifted her ears, considered it, then resettled with a heavy sigh.

  “She learned to ‘come up’ very quickly, but there’s something about ‘get down’ that doesn’t compute in her brain. Just shove her off.”

  He did so, pushing Dancer onto the bench between them. The dog rolled onto her back, legs splayed, and rested her head once again on Rick’s legs.

  “She has no modesty, does she?” he asked drily.

  “Of course not. Her mama’s a stripper. Didn’t you have dogs when you were a kid?”

  “Yeah, sure, but they weren’t allowed inside the house and they weren’t too fond of kids. They always hid when they heard my brothers and me coming.”

  “Gee, imagine that.”

  “Aw, we weren’t bad kids. At least, not seriously so.” He gave in and began scratching Dancer’s belly. Tongue lolling, she gazed up at him with pure puppy admiration. “What about you? Did you have pets?”

  “No.” A dog was to have been her Christmas present the year she was seven, a beautiful spotted dalmatian. Her mother hadn’t wanted a dog and had insisted that if they had to have one, one from the pound would do just as well as some fancy registered breed. But her dad had promised, and he never broke his promises.

  At least, not by choice. His accident had been in late October; he’d spent Christmas and Easter and the Fourth of July in the hospital. Even at seven, Amanda had known intuitively that there would be no more talk of a dog.

  Her mother had been right about one thing, though: a pound puppy was just as good as a registered dog—even better. Dancer had come from the shelter and she was wonderful.

  “Do you like to fish?” she asked, just to break the silence.

  “Yeah. My granddad felt it was his duty to teach all of us. Promise him a catch and he would go anywhere in the world.”

  “There was a river about half a mile from our house. My dad spent more hours on those banks than anyplace else besides work.” Fishing had made David happy. Those times that her mother had packed sandwiches and cold lemonade for a picnic while he fished were among her fondest memories. She didn’t have many of them, though. After all, she’d been only six when they ended.

  “My old man wouldn’t touch a fishing pole with…well, a ten-foot pole.”

  “Is that why you’ve never gotten married and had kids? Because of the example your father set?”

  His gaze was razor sharp in the night, but his tone was mild. “I never said I hadn’t been married.”

  She felt a tinge of…disappointment? He was thirty-six, sexy, with that previously mentioned old Georgia name and money, and he had a grin that could charm a woman right out of her thong. It made sense that he’d been married at least once.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He waited a beat, two, then said, “Though I haven’t.”

  “Afraid of commitment?”

  Again with the sharp gaze. “No. Just waiting for the right time. Like you, I’ve had other priorities in my life.”

  “Tending bar at a strip club?”

  “Hey, strippers don’t get to look down on bartenders.”

  “I’ve been looked down on enough in my life. I would never judge anyone else by their profession.” Dancer, now snoring softly, began to twitch and Amanda reached over to rub her belly. “But
isn’t your family a little disappointed?”

  “They’d be happier if I was back home working in the family business, but that isn’t going to happen and they know it. I like my job, I stay out of trouble and I don’t ask them for money. Mom says that’s all any woman can ask of her child.”

  Brenda wouldn’t agree. Amanda liked her job, stayed out of trouble and gave money to Brenda and Dana when they needed it, but Brenda had wanted so much more.

  As she rubbed Dancer’s silky black fur, Rick’s fingers brushed hers. An accident, she thought the first time. Deliberate, she knew the second. It would be so easy to take his hand, to push Dancer out of the way and close the distance between them. It would be so damn easy to kiss him.

  But she didn’t. If this were nothing more than a fling, she wouldn’t hesitate. But it felt like a whole lot more. It felt like a chance. An opportunity.

  Maybe a future.

  “I’d better get inside,” she said, scooting to the edge of the swing. “It’s been a long night and Julia wants one more practice before her audition tomorrow night. Good night.”

  She went to the door and opened the screen for Dancer, who leaped from the bench with a grunt, then padded into the house.

  When Amanda followed, locking both doors behind her, Rick was still sitting on the swing in the dark. She thought about asking him to come in, even if it was too soon. If this was an opportunity for something more, rushing the sex wouldn’t change that.

  But still, there in the dark hallway, she hesitated. He made the decision for her. His footsteps sounded on the porch, followed by the slam of his car door, then the engine making that beefed-up growl.

  As he drove away, she regretted her hesitation. A lot.

  Almost Heaven smelled like carpet deodorizer and lemon cleaner when Amanda entered the main room Sunday evening. Whoever had the job of closing during the week did a cursory cleaning job, but on Sunday mornings a professional crew took over. The glass shelves behind the bar gleamed, the lacquered tables were spotless and the chairs were arranged just so around them.