The Rana Look

by Sandra Brown

  And why not admit it? She was in love with Trent

  She gazed at herself in the foggy bathroom mirror, wondering if the evidence of that newfound love was shining in her eyes. Those exotic eyes she took such pains to hide stared back at her, limpid with emotion. What would Trent think if she allowed him to see them? Would he think they were as mysterious and lovely as they were touted to be? Would he think they were beautiful?

  She opened the cabinet and took out a brown eye crayon. She turned it over and over in her hand, the way a former smoker handles a forbidden cigarette. A stroke of the crayon here, a dab there, a smudged line underneath the lower lashes. Should she? Just a subtle highlight to enhance the almond shape of her eyes? A whisk of cheek color in the hollow beneath her cheekbones? A little lip gloss?

  She thought wistfully of all the white clothes left behind in New York. Their color made her olive complexion and dark red hair breathtaking by contrast. Cinched waistbands, provocative necklines, flowing skirts, and tailored slacks made the most of her figure. For just a moment she yearned to be as beautiful as she possibly could be.

  What would Trent think of his lover then?

  “You can’t really love me,” she had whispered in the aftermath of their passion.

  “I do.”

  “I know what kind of woman you’re usually with. I’m not that type.”

  “Maybe that’s why I love you so much. I’ve dated many beautiful women, but they’re so damn shallow compared to you. You have substance. A soul. I love your body. I love what it does to mine. But I fell in love with what you are on the inside. You’re not just a pretty shell. You’re a complete woman.”

  Rana returned the eye crayon to the shelf in the cabinet and closed the door firmly. She covered her face with her hands and breathed deeply. Feminine vanity tempted her to be beautiful for him. But would he still love her if he knew she had been exactly the kind of woman he now scorned?

  She wasn’t under any illusions about their future. They had none. There wouldn’t be a happy ending. In only a short time he would be leaving for training camp. When he left, she would lose him forever.

  But now, while she was with him, she would bask in his professions of love. There had been so few satisfying emotional relationships in her life. Her mother didn’t really know what love was. Morey had loved her, but for some reason he hadn’t felt that he could confide in her.

  Every time she thought of his death, she was devastated all over again. Had he taken his own life? The possibility plagued her, but Trent ‘s loving had soothed even that deep wound.

  Their time together was destined to be fleeting. But she would live every minute of it without regret. She would be Ana Ramsey, because that was what he needed right now.

  She had barely pulled on a pair of sloppy jeans and an oversized blue chambray shirt when he knocked on her door. “Open up.”

  “Coming. Please don’t come crashing in again.” When she opened the door to him, she asked, “Are you going to repair the lock before Ruby sees it?”

  “Are you going to give me a kiss?”

  “You’re drenched with sweat!”

  “My lips aren’t.” She leaned toward him and touched only his puckered lips with hers. “Guess that’ll have to do for now,” he said grudgingly.

  She laughed. “Are you hungry?”

  “We had breakfast at four A.M. In a case like that, what does one eat at nine?”

  “How about grilled-ham-and-cheese sandwiches?”

  “Sounds great.”

  “I’ll start them. You go shower, please,” she said, waving her hand in front of her nose.

  Ten minutes later he joined her in the kitchen. “You certainly smell better,” she said laughingly. “I sliced up some fruit for a salad and-”

  He stopped her speech by hauling her toward him, encircling her with his arms, and planting a damp, hot kiss on her mouth. He touched her slightly crooked teeth with his tongue. “I love the way you taste.” His mouth slid down her throat. “All of you,” he mumbled into her cleavage. His mouth returned to hers and his tongue delved deep.

  “Your sandwich is getting cold,” she murmured drowsily when they came up for air.

  “And I’m getting hot.” He nuzzled her middle with his.

  Rana cleared her throat and stepped out of his embrace. “You’re shameless. Now, sit down and eat.”

  “You’re getting as bossy as Aunt Ruby.”

  They ate their brunch, but went about itslowly, because they often lapsed into staring spells. He mentioned her glasses again and asked if she would take them off. “Then I couldn’t see you,” she explained, and diverted him by pecking a string of kisses along his jaw and finally finding his mouth.

  “Hello, dears, anybody home?” Ruby called from the entrance hall.

  They broke apart. Rana looked dismayed, and her cheeks filled with rosy color. Trent, looking like the cat who got the cream, smiled at her lazily. “In here, Aunt Ruby. I was just eating something delicious.”

  Rana glared at him as Ruby came bustling through the door. “What’s that, dear? Oh, how lovely! Miss Ramsey’s feeding you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Rana jumped from her seat and pulled out a chair for Ruby. “Join us, please. Is your friend doing well?”

  “Yes, yes, much better. Wanted some company, more than anything. But tell me, how was your trip? When did you get back?”

  Rana filled Ruby in on the essential facts surrounding her trip, leaving out the details. “I apologize for leaving in such a hurry without any explanation.”

  “Under the circumstances, I understand,” Ruby said, laying a sympathetic hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Did Trent tell you he had your car repaired while you were away?”

  “No,” he answered for her. “We’ve seen a lot of each other since she got back, but we never got around to discussing cars.”

  Rana shot him another fulminating look, but luckily Ruby was too distracted to notice his double entendre. “Would you like me to fix you a sandwich, Ruby?” Rana asked. “I haven’t put away the makings yet, and you look tired.”

  “Thank you, dear, maybe I will let you make me a sandwich. If neither of you needs me this afternoon, I think I’ll stay in my room and nap. My friend and I talked into the wee hours of the morning. The poor thing has no one to talk with. The children rarely visit.”

  Rana prepared and grilled another sandwich. Trent nibbled on sliced cantaloupe and watermelon. His eyes rarely left Rana. They transmitted smoky looks full of implication.

  “That was delicious,” Ruby told Rana when she had finished eating. “Is there anything either of you needs?”

  “No, Auntie,” Trent said, solicitously helping his aunt from her chair. “You go rest. Miss Ramsey and Iare perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. And why not let me take you out to dinner tonight?”

  Ruby patted his cheek affectionately. “Isn’t he a dear boy?”

  “Yes, he is,” Rana said with a happy smile.

  “Did you mean that?” Trent asked Rana a few minutes later, after Ruby had retired to her room down the hall and they were alone.

  “What?” She was rinsing out dishes at the sink. It had taken some convincing, but Ruby had finally consented to let her do the chore.

  “About my being a dear boy?” He slid his arms around her from behind. Immediately his hands found her breasts and began to massage them. “Why do you hide these behind such bulky clothes? You’ve got beautiful, enticing breasts. Don’t you have something clingy to wear?”

  She tried to struggle free, but she didn’t try very hard. “No, I like loose clothes. What difference does it make to you?”

  “Because I’d like to look at them.” His thumbs drifted back and forth across her nipples until they became erect. “See what I mean? I hate to miss seeing that.”

  “Stop it, Trent. Ruby might come in.”

  “She’s sleeping,” he whispered against the back of her neck. “Wanna go play in the gr
eenhouse?”

  “The greenhouse?” A delicious lassitude was seeping through her, robbing her of the strength to protest.

  “Yeah. I could go for some hot, steamy sex with you right now.”

  “You’re shameless.”

  “I’m horny,” he whispered, turning her around to face him.

  “Still?”

  “Grilled-ham-and-cheese sandwiches always have that effect on me.” She linked her arms around his neck. “Especially when a lusty broad like you has cooked them for me.” His arms went around her waist. He slid his hands into the back pockets of her jeans and drew her against him. “You have the cutest little butt.” He squeezed it as he fitted himself against her.

  The kiss started out passionate and only got deeper. Their mouths opened to each other; tongues met. Anchoring her hips against the side of the counter with the firm pressure of his, he unbuttoned her blouse far enough to get a hand inside. He cupped her breast lovingly, gently squeezed it, and lightly rolled the nipple between his fingers.

  “I want you,” he said roughly. “The greenhouse or the bedroom?”

  “ Trent, we can’t,” she said feebly.

  “How come?”

  “It’s the middle of the day.”

  “So?”

  “I really need to paint. I’ve got work to do. Four new orders.”

  “Okay,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll leave you alone to work if you’ll let me stay in your apartment while I study my playbook.”

  She watched his face carefully, looking for signs of trickery. “All right,” she conceded at last. “But you’ve got to promise to behave.”

  “I promise.”

  They went upstairs to her apartment. They even made a concerted effort to stick to their resolutions. But as it turned out, they made slow, lazy, afternoon love.

  It was wonderful, but Trent was faintly disappointed that Ana insisted on closing the heavy drapes and blocking out most of the light. He wanted to see sunlight pouring over her body. Lying beside her on the bed, he watched her drowsing in the contented aftermath of desire. He wondered how he ever could have thought she was plain.

  She was beautiful. She wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever met. She filled an emptiness in his life he hadn’t even known was there. And now that he had found her, he wasn’t about to let her go.

  Eight

  “Oh, here she is now.”

  Rana heard Trent ’s voice the moment she stepped through the front door, and, following it, the familiar tread of his feet on the hardwood floors.

  “Ana?”

  “Hi.”

  He rounded the corner connecting the center hall to the parlor and took her in his arms for a swift kiss. “There’s someone here I want you to meet.”

  “But-”

  “You’ve heard of Tom Tandy, wide receiver for the Mustangs. He’s got the best hands in the NFL. He drove down for a visit. I’ve been telling him all about you.”

  She tried to dig her heels in, but Trent was pushing her toward the front parlor. She didn’t want to meet anyone, in her frazzled condition. She had been shopping for supplies and she felt hot and disheveled.

  And then there was always the chance that she might be recognized when she was introduced to someone. She and Trent had been together for some time. His affection was genuine, Of that she was certain. More than ever she dreaded his finding out that she wasn’t exactly who she pretended to be. How he would feel if ever he discovered her true identity, she couldn’t guess, but she didn’t want to risk it. Everything had been so idyllic, spoiling it now was unthinkable.

  They hadn’t been able to keep their love affair a secret from Ruby. That first evening, when Trent had held true to his promise to take them out to dinner, Ruby had shrewdly assessed the situation.

  From behind her menu she had said, “It took the two of you long enough to discover each other.”

  “What do you mean, Aunt Ruby?” Trent asked innocently.

  Ruby lowered the corner of the menu and gave him a baleful look. “I’m not senile or undersexed, young man, and I resent your implication that I don’t know about these things. Where do you think I was last night?”

  “You said you were going to nurse a sick friend,” he answered, his brown eyes twinkling.

  “I never said it was a lady friend, though, did I?”

  Rana’s lips had parted in speechless surprise. Ruby went back to studying her menu. Trent boomed out a laugh that attracted the attention of several diners, who then recognized him and came over to their table to ask for his autograph.

  Since then Rana had ceased to be self-conscious about her affair with Trent in front of his aunt. Ruby acted as though there was nothing peculiar about the handsome, charismatic “hunk” falling head over heels in love with the “frump.” But Rana wasn’t so naive as to think that other people wouldn’t find his attraction to her strange.

  The moment she entered the parlor and saw Tom Tandy’s expression, she realized just what an odd pair they made in the eyes of the world. Rana and Trent Gamblin would have been a golden couple, but Miss Ramsey had no place at his side. If she hadn’t known that before, the football player’s reaction spelled it outclearly. To say that he was shocked was putting it mildly.

  His lantern jaw dropped open and his mouth went slack with astonishment. Rana actually felt sorry for him. Trent had no doubt painted a word picture of her for the young man, and Miss Ramsey was hardly what he had expected.

  “Tom, this is Ana Ramsey. Ana, Tom Tandy.”

  “How do you do, Tom,” she said, extending her hand. It was still rough and unmanicured, though she had recently wanted to let her nails grow out again just for the pleasure of scratching Trent ’s back with them. When he kissed her hands or held them tightly in his, which was frequently, she longed for the days when they had been pampered. Tom briefly gripped her hand before releasing it. “Please sit down. I see that Trent has already gotten you something to drink.”

  Whether Trent realized it or not, this was an awkward moment. She was playing gracious hostess in an effort to put the flabbergasted young man at ease. Now was the time for him to say to his buddy, “She’s as beautiful as you described,” or “I can see now why you’ve tucked yourself away down here in Galveston, you sly thing, you.”

  Instead, Tom just stared at Rana. It wasn’t out of recognition. He was simply dismayed, she guessed, over her dissimilarity to all of Trent ’s former girlfriends.

  “Would you like another beer” she asked.

  “No. No, thank you,” Tom said, lowering his tall, muscular frame back onto Ruby’s antique sofa. The Victorian furniture hadn’t been designed to seat professional football players comfortably. He sank into the deep cushions, and his knees came up almost level with his chest. If Rana could have joked at that moment, she might have remarked on how ridiculously out of place Tom and Trent looked in the parlor, like giants in a dollhouse.

  “Do you want a beer, darling” Trent asked as he pulled Rana down beside him on the love seat.

  “You know I can’t stand the stuff, but I’ll take a sip of yours just for something wet. It’s so hot out.”

  She took a sip from his can of cold beer and licked her lips. He smiled, kissed her quickly, and then looked at Tom as though for approval. Tom just continued to gape.

  “Are you staying for dinner, To amp;” Rana asked to break an uncomfortable silence.

  “Uh, no.” He cleared his throat loudly when his voice came out as little more than a croak. “I’ve, uh, got to get back. I have a… uh… date.”

  He had driven to Galveston with the hope of taking Trent back to Houston with him. He figured that his friend had been playing monk long enough. They were due to leave for summer training camp in a few days. Tom intended to party between now and then, and he had assumed Trent would be thinking along the same lines. It had been shocking enough to learn that Trent had no intention of carousing.

  But when Ana Ramsey had walked into the room, Tom fel
t as if the rug had been jerked out from under him. He couldn’t believe his eyes. Any moment now, he thought, somebody was going to tell him the punch line.

  “I think Trent ’s visit down here has done wonders for him,” Tom said conversationally.

  If Trent ’s Ana had been beautiful and sophisticated, he would have had no trouble bantering with her. But this woman in the baggy trousers and vest left him tongue-tied. “He’s in better shape than I’ve seen him in in years,” he said.

  “We’ve been worried about his shoulder, but when he went to see the doctor last week, he pronounced it completely healed.” She turned to Trent and smiled.

  “So Trent says.”

  “I think he can lead the Mustangs to the Super Bowl this year and win,” Rana said confidently. She laid her hand on Trent ’s thigh in one of those unplanned gestures that says so much about the level of intimacy in a relationship.

  Trent emitted an exaggerated sigh and stretched his arms out along the back of the love seat. “The lady adores me,” he said expansively.

  Rana socked him playfully in the stomach. They engaged in a skirmish of batting hands that resulted in an affectionate hug.

  “ Trent tells me you paint, or something,” Tom said to Rana when they finally settled down.

  “More like ‘or something.’ I paint on clothing, but I’m diversifying. I’m thinking of going into upholstery-sofa cushions and accent pillows, that sort of thing.”

  Tom nodded, but she didn’t think he had any concept of what she was talking about. Barry had suggested that if the wealthy women of Houston were willing to spend hundreds on original hand-painted clothing, they might be just as willing to pay thousands to have an original hand- painted chair or chaise or sofa. Rana had given it careful thought and then had bounced the idea off Trent. He had given it his wholehearted endorsement.

  “Do some up,” he had suggested. “To see how they catch on, we could place them in a few of the prime properties my company is handling.”

  “That’s where I’ve been today,” Rana told Tom now. “I went to a textile-surplus warehouse to buy fabric.” She indicated the large package she had left in the doorway when Trent escorted her into the parlor. “speaking of which,” she said as she stood up, “I’ll excuse myself to go upstairs and get to work.”