Keeping Company

by Tami Hoag

Taking one last glimpse in the mirror, he was gone.

  He was not looking forward to this evening. Marlene Desidarian had been hounding him for weeks to come to dinner, and he had managed to put her off, but she was a friend and he’d known he couldn’t delay the inevitable forever.

  Marlene had doggedly been struggling to marry him off ever since they’d met when he’d first moved to Anastasia after the divorce. No matter how many times he told her he wasn’t interested in trying matrimony a second time around, she persisted.

  The entire situation left him feeling vaguely queasy. After the breakup of his marriage to Veronica he was understandably wary of making a commitment—not only for the sake of his own heart, but for the sake of his children as well. What if a second marriage didn’t work any better than the first? It would kill him to put Cori and Sam through that kind of hell again. On the other hand, he harbored a genuine fear that his children were being cheated. He worked very hard at being a good father, but maybe his kids needed a mother too.

  Well, he sighed as he pulled his Bronco up along the curb in front of Marlene’s duplex, maybe someday he would find a woman he could feel safe marrying. She would be a far cry from Veronica, that was for sure. No more ambitious career women for him. He had thrown off the trappings of the yuppie lifestyle in favor of a saner existence. Next time—if there was a next time—he would find a woman so domestic, she’d make Donna Reed look bad. In the meantime …

  He steeled his resolve and looked up at the neatly painted Victorian house, cream with blue trim, bulging with bay windows that gleamed amber in the fading light of dusk. He was ready. He could take anything Marlene the matchmaker would throw at him this evening.

  * * *

  Alaina Montgomery. Those legs couldn’t possibly belong to any other woman. Dylan’s heart slammed into his ribs as his gaze slid down from a shapely derriere decked out in a snug, well-cut gray skirt to the backs of two elegant knees and a pair of calves that made his palms break out in a sweat. His fingers twitched to trace down the length of the silk stockings that housed those gorgeous limbs. Shapely calves tapered to slender ankles that led to feet encased in Italian leather pumps.

  Lord, he’d dreamed about those legs. He’d taken cold showers because of those legs. This past week all he’d seen upon closing his eyes were those legs. The woman attached to them was all wrong for him, of course, but those legs …

  They were alone in Marlene’s dining room. Dylan had let himself in, hoping to have a chance to scope out the situation before Marlene started throwing single women at him. Alaina was bent over the service bar that connected the dining room and the kitchen, reaching for a bread basket.

  Dylan strolled up behind her, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his baggy chinos to keep from touching her. He had an almost overwhelming urge to goose her and wondered if it would be worth getting belted for. Probably, he decided, eyeing her fanny, but he managed to restrain himself just the same.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Princess,” he said, leaning closer than was strictly prudent and catching a whiff of very expensive perfume. “I take it you’re on Marlene’s hit list too.”

  Alaina wheeled at the sound of his clear, resonant baritone, her blue eyes wide as her heart went into a frantic dance. Her fingers went suddenly numb and she dropped the basket she held. Dinner rolls leaped out and bounced all over the floor.

  “You!” she said with a gasp, her stunned gaze taking in his appearance in one swift glance. The man didn’t have an ounce of good taste. He wore rumpled tan chinos, high-top sneakers, a wildly printed Hawaiian shirt, and a skinny leather necktie with a hula dancer painted on it. “What are you doing here?”

  Dylan frowned down at the bouncing buns. “Having dinner, provided you don’t throw too much of it on the floor.”

  “Marlene invited you?” she asked, incredulous and horrified. In spite of his awful outfit, she was well aware of just how good-looking Dylan Harrison was and just how he affected her unmanageable feminine instincts. She had hoped to avoid temptation by avoiding him. It certainly wasn’t her idea of a good time to be constantly reminded she was wildly attracted to a married man who ran a waterfront beer joint.

  “Yes.” Dylan grinned, flashing his even white teeth at her. “I’m on a lot of people’s A-list. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  Alaina’s slim nose lifted a notch as she caught a whiff of his atrocious aftershave. “Virtually impossible. Why would Marlene invite you? You’re married.”

  Dylan’s straight brows leaped up his forehead. “Since when?”

  “Ha!” Alaina exclaimed, summoning all the snootiness she possessed and wearing it like a shield. “Don’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes!”

  He gave her a lazy smile. “Can I pull it over some other choice part of you?”

  “You can choke on it,” she declared, her eyes narrowing as she regarded him in utter contempt. “I won’t have anything to do with a married man.”

  “That makes two of us. Finally, we find we have something in common!”

  “I heard you on the phone the other night.”

  Boy, she was cute when she was in a snit, he decided. Instead of being angry at her attack, he was actually kind of pleased. Wrong for him or not, he was glad to see her again. She was fun to fight with and wonderful to look at, and he couldn’t help wondering how that sexy mouth of hers would taste. “Hearsay isn’t admissible in a court of law.”

  “Neither is a punch in the nose, but that’s what you’re going to get if you try anything, buster.” She brandished her fist in front of her to illustrate her point.

  “My, you’re feisty. I’m the one who should be upset. You were eavesdropping on my private conversation.”

  Her index finger popped out of her fist and she poked Dylan on the chest with it. “So, you admit it then?”

  “Admit what?”

  “That you have children.”

  “Yes. Wholeheartedly. Enthusiastically. I have children.”

  “And a wife!” she declared, going for the full confession.

  “Ex. I’m divorced.”

  Alaina’s jaw dropped as the force of her offensive hit a brick wall. “Divorced?” she questioned dumbly.

  “A concept I’m sure you’ve benefited from on more than one occasion,” Dylan said with more than a hint of bitterness. After what he’d been through, he had no great love of lawyers—female or otherwise. “Divorce is a lucrative slice of the judicial pie, is it not, counselor?”

  The wind thoroughly taken from her sails, Alaina sighed. “Yes, it is.”

  She felt like an utter fool, an unfamiliar and distinctly unwelcome sensation. Why had it not occurred to her that he might be divorced? Half the men his age were divorced. She supposed she was just overly skittish of rogue husbands since Clayton. When she’d heard Dylan talking to his child over the phone, she had jumped to what for her was a natural, if unpleasant, conclusion.

  So he wasn’t married. Hmmm. A mysterious warmth swept through her at the thought. Dylan Harrison was unattached. That didn’t change the fact that she wasn’t interested in a relationship, she reminded herself rather halfheartedly. Nor did it change the fact that he was not at all her type. And the fact that he was not her type didn’t change the fact that he had sexy, wavy, dark hair shot through with sun-kissed threads of blond and red or that his mouth looked as if it were made strictly for long, slow, deep kisses.

  “Silent for a full twenty seconds,” Dylan announced, consulting his watch. “That must be some kind of record. Should we be calling the people at Guinness?”

  He grinned at Alaina, then his expression suddenly changed from one of teasing mischief to one of stunned disbelief as his gaze dropped to the bodice of her jewel-blue blouse. “Holy Hannah! It’s the Crystal of Kalamari!”

  His hands lifted toward her breasts, and Alaina jumped back against the service bar, her blood shooting through her veins. Dimly she wondered if there wasn’t something drastically wrong with her, the way
she seemed to become aroused every time this man behaved like a lunatic.

  “I beg your pardon?” she asked, her husky alto voice nothing but a breathless whisper.

  Managing to leash his excitement an instant before he laid his hands on her, Dylan curled his fingers into fists. He swallowed down a hard knot of air, his eyes still riveted to the piece of jewelry Alaina wore pinned just above her left breast. “That pin you’re wearing,” he said softly, as if he were afraid of being overheard, “may I ask how you came by it?”

  Not daring to move, Alaina glanced down. The pin she wore had been a gift from Bryan Hennessy. It was an interesting little prism of glass cut in the shape of an inverted V. She wore it, she told herself, because it amused her and because it reminded her of a dear friend, not because of the rainbows trapped inside its clear walls. Bryan was the believer in rainbows, not she.

  “It was a gift from a friend,” she said, feeling as if she’d just been thrust into the middle of an Indiana Jones movie. “Does it have some significance?”

  Dylan almost groaned aloud. Did an authentic Crystal of Kalamari pin have significance? As an avid collector of science fiction memorabilia, he had been searching for this piece for more than twenty years. What an odd bit of luck to find one pinned to the lush, ripe breast of Alaina Montgomery.

  Lush, ripe breast, he mused, belatedly realizing that he once more had Alaina pinned up against an immovable object. Man, she had gorgeous breasts! He’d had his share of dreams about them as well as about her legs. The neckline of her blouse didn’t afford him a view of her cleavage as her Princess Andora outfit had, but the fine silk still outlined the feminine mounds to perfection. In his imagination he already knew how they would feel in his hands—heavy and warm. And he would have bet his Space Marauders decoder ring that they were encased in a scandalously expensive, deliciously cut, sheer black French-lace bra.

  She shifted against the counter, and the overhead light caught the crystal just right. The vivid colors of the rainbow within it drew Dylan’s eye. It struck him that the pin was a very whimsical accessory for a woman who projected such a tough image. He lifted his gaze and tried to see past Alaina’s cool barriers, a dozen questions stuck in his throat. He didn’t ask any of them, but held his breath as a fine thread of awareness stretched between them like spun glass, fragile and tenuous.

  “Dylan Harrison, when did you get here?” Marlene demanded to know as she powered open the swinging door between the kitchen and the dining room with a thrust of her hip. She held a steaming bowl in each hand. A flowing orchid caftan covered her ample form.

  The spell was broken. Dylan stepped back from Alaina, casually tucking his hands into his pants pockets, hoping to disguise the fact that he was about half turned on from fantasizing about her underwear. “Hours ago, Marlene. You must have fallen into a time warp.”

  “I fell into ten pounds of mashed potatoes,” she said, plunking the dishes down on the table. “I hope you’re hungry.”

  “Oh …,” Dylan drawled, casting a wolfish look Alaina’s way, “my mouth is literally watering.”

  Alaina smiled and rolled her eyes, wondering giddily when her heart was going to stop racing.

  “Good.” Marlene turned to face them. “I see you two have met.”

  “As you no doubt intended,” Dylan said dryly.

  “Actually, I wanted you to meet Ramona Madrone. She’s in the den.” She shrugged as she gave up the flimsy pretense of the innocent dinner party. Alaina’s black scowl didn’t faze her as she glanced at her boss. “And I wanted you to meet Morton Sternberg. He’s in the den too.” She looked from Alaina to Dylan, waving a hand between them as she frowned. “The two of you? You’re not compatible in the least.”

  It was on the tip of Alaina’s tongue to protest. Her hormones had their own idea of compatibility. They could have lit up all of Anastasia with the electricity that zinged between herself and Dylan Harrison. But she bit her tongue on the admission and tucked her chin defensively, as if Marlene’s charge of incompatibility were a terrible insult.

  I’m losing my mind, she decided calmly as she went to stand behind a chair at the dinner table. Why she would want to be considered compatible with a lascivious, licentious lunatic was beyond her. The Crystal of Kalamari, indeed. She had to admit, though, it had been a creative way of getting within touching distance of her breasts. She had to give him points for his style, unorthodox as it was.

  She refused to wonder about the moment that had passed between them. Awareness like that seemed a dangerous thing to contemplate. So did the wanting it stirred deep within her. Wanting meant vulnerability, vulnerability left a person open to hurt, and hurt was to be avoided at all cost. But …

  She looked across the table just as Dylan glanced away. The hula girl tie made her shake her head in disbelief. There was something ridiculously tempting about him. It was damned annoying.

  Their respective dinner partners turned out to be everything Marlene’s blind dates usually were and then some. That the woman ever made a nickel as a matchmaker was a minor miracle. Alaina thought it was a wonder no one had ever threatened to sue.

  Ramona Madrone was a prosthesis builder from Ukiah, thin as a whip with the overbite of a parrot. Morton Sternberg, as it turned out, was an orthodontist with a fake leg. If ever two people were compatible, it had to be Ramona and Morton.

  The meal passed pleasantly enough, considering. Dylan kept the conversation rolling, orchestrating the topics so Ramona and Morton became thoroughly acquainted with each other. Alaina smiled to herself. So she wasn’t the only one who thought the two made a dandy pair. Only Marlene seemed displeased with the idea, frowning and grumbling down at her mashed potatoes.

  Alaina spent much of the dinner surreptitiously watching Dylan. He seemed to enjoy usurping Marlene’s authority. And he was darn good at it, she admitted, unaccountably pleased by the fact that there was a sharp intellect lurking beneath that horrible outfit of his. Twice he caught her looking at him and shot her a wink and a smile, and she marveled at the wave of tingles that washed over her.

  After the meal they all moved into Marlene’s den, a room crammed with all sorts of mystical oddities. She had everything from astrological charts to an honest-to-goodness crystal ball. Dylan got Marlene off on what he knew would be a long-winded explanation of channeling, then discreetly slipped out the side door to the porch with Alaina in tow.

  “That was rude,” Alaina said affably. She settled back against the porch railing and reached into her small purse for a cigarette and her lighter.

  “Why?” Dylan asked, frowning as he watched her light up. “We left her with a captive audience.”

  She exhaled a stream of blue into the night air, her eyes sparkling. “That’s what I meant. Leaving Ramona and Morton trapped like that. Marlene will go on with that malarkey for hours, and they’re too polite to tell her to put a cork in it.”

  “I take it you don’t believe in the magical, mystical—”

  “—malarkey. No, I don’t. I believe in jurisprudence, three-day weekends, and really good Scotch.”

  “Hmm, a cynic,” Dylan murmured, his eye straying to the pin she wore. “Then you probably wouldn’t have any sentimental objections to parting with that little glass bauble you’re wearing—for the right price, of course.”

  “I would mind,” she said, fingering the prism and finding it oddly warm to the touch. “It was a gift from a friend. I wouldn’t dream of parting with it.”

  “A special friend?” he asked, pretending a casualness he didn’t feel. He didn’t like the idea of some other man having prior claim to Alaina’s legs, not to mention the crystal. In fact, he felt downright possessive about it, which really wasn’t like him at all.

  “He’s like a brother to me.”

  He just managed to swallow his sigh of relief. “Well, if you won’t sell it, I suppose I could marry you. Then it would be mine by relation, so to speak.”

  Alaina cringed, though her heart gave a
strange thump at his suggestion. “Please,” she said, rolling her eyes, “don’t mention that word to me.”

  “ ‘Marriage’?”

  She winced.

  “Not interested, huh?” He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised. Moreover, he shouldn’t have been disappointed, but he was.

  “It’s nothing personal,” she assured him. “Though, of course, you are, in fact, not my type. Having seen far more bad ones than good ones, I find marriage in general an unappealing prospect. Why should I bother trying it when I have a perfectly satisfactory life as it is?”

  “A career, a great wardrobe, a BMW—what more could a yuppie girl ask for?” Dylan said sardonically as he leaned back against a post.

  “Hey, I’ve got my life, you’ve got your bar and bait shop. To each his own tastes,” she said, casting a pointed look at his necktie. The hula girl glowed under the porch light.

  “I guess,” he conceded. “In point of fact, you’re not my type either.”

  “How rude of you to say so.” Alaina smiled to cover the fact that his statement rankled a bit.

  “Can I help it you’re not exactly June Cleaver?” Dylan shrugged. “Besides, I’m a rude, crude sort of guy—which brings me to my next proposition.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  “Since you’re not looking for a relationship and I’m not looking for a relationship, and Marlene is determined to bulldoze us into relationships, why don’t we band together?”

  Alaina eyed him skeptically. “Just what are you proposing?”

  Dylan pressed on, warming to his impulsive stroke of brilliance. He was a genius. He could get off Marlene’s marry-go-round and get Alaina’s legs all to himself in one fell swoop. If he could spend some time with her, maybe he could talk her into parting with the crystal. And deeper down was the notion that, if he could spend some time with her, maybe he could show her that having it all didn’t necessarily refer to imported cars and high-resolution television.

  “Keeping company,” he said. “We give the appearance of being involved in a loose but committed sort of relationship. It would be like our own private escort service. We’d go out with each other, keeping well-meaning matchmakers at bay.”