Derek studied her face. “I thought you only wanted to party. Doesn’t seem like you should want anyone to be beside you in times of trouble if you don’t have times of trouble,” he pointed out.
“Everyone has times of trouble. Times when it would be nice to have someone to lean on,” Summer answered, unaware that her eyes had filled with an old, distant sadness as she thought back five years to a time when she had needed someone and to a man who had not been there for her. Then, realizing that she was allowing the conversation to become too heavy, she pasted her best party-girl smile back on her animated face and added, “Even Minnie Mouse has good old Mickey.”
Derek’s eyes gleamed with a sudden inner smile. “You’re saying your hero is Mickey Mouse?”
She laughed. “Close enough.” With the conversation back on a light line she was much more comfortable, able to throw off the past.
“Maybe the problem is that you’ve been dating the wrong kind of men. Maybe you should try dating men who are more—”
“Like you? Thanks, but no thanks,” she quipped, though she wondered what she would say if he did ask her out. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to turn him down, particularly if he was standing as close to her as he was now.
“Have I just been insulted? What’s wrong with men like me? I’m emotionally mature, and I’m particularly good in times of trouble.”
“I’m sure you are, but you’re entirely too proper and conventional. I know it drives you crazy that Connie quit school and has no career goals and that she never misses a chance to party. You just can’t resist offering her advice on how to improve her life. Like Connie, I would frustrate someone like you, and I would get tired of always being expected to follow your suggestions. A real hero for me would be a cross between you and…and someone like Clay McEntire over there.” She pointed to a rugged, blond jock-type who was doing a really funny impersonation of a Motown backup singer as an oldie from The Temptations played in the background.
Following the direction of her pointing finger, Derek grunted and shook his head. “I’d jump feetfirst into a tar pit before I’d make a spectacle of myself like he’s doing,” he admitted. “Wouldn’t it bother you to put on that kind of performance?”
“Oh, I’ve given a few performances in my time. Sometime Clay and I will have to show you our special impression of Gladys Knight and One Pip,” she answered humorously. “You can’t have any fun if you’re stiff and formal all the time, Derek.”
“Fun,” he replied thoughtfully. “You call this party fun?”
“Very much so,” she answered decisively. “Do you really dislike it all that much?”
“No.” He looked directly into her eyes. “Not at all.”
She started to ask him to elaborate, then decided not to. His proximity was doing unusual things to her senses, and suddenly words eluded her—an odd experience for Summer Reed, who always had a ready quip on her lips. She could smell the crisp after-shave Derek wore and see the sheen of tanned flesh where the indirect lighting of the room fell on his face and throat. She was also becoming inexplicably fascinated by his eyes, their color changing from dull pewter when he was serious to a gleaming silver when they reflected the smile that barely touched his stern mouth. She was becoming more and more aware of his physical attributes, which she found rather dismaying.
“Are you actually admitting that it’s okay to enjoy a party?” she asked him quickly, forcing her voice through her tight throat.
“Occasionally,” he replied. “But there’s no excuse for making it one’s only purpose for living as my sister seems to do.”
Summer straightened defensively on her stool, glaring at the man beside her without a trace of her lovely smile. “Connie is my best friend, Derek Anderson, and she’s a terrific person. Sure she’s made a few mistakes in her life, but who hasn’t? You should consider yourself lucky to have her for a sister rather than trying to change her into your idea of the perfect young woman.”
“That’s telling him, Summer.” Standing just behind Summer’s shoulder, Connie applauded her roommate’s indignant speech. Her improbably red hair worn in a shaggy semipunk style and her green eyes outlined liberally with kohl, Connie looked even younger than her twenty-five years in her baggy sweatshirt, which hung almost to the knees of her skintight black leggings. She could not have made a more startling contrast to her brother’s conservative attire. “I should have warned you, Derek, my friend Summer won’t be any more hesitant about telling you off than I am. You don’t intimidate everyone, you know.”
“I never tried to intimidate you, Connie.”
Watching in silence, Summer thought she detected a shade of sadness in Derek’s eyes. She believed that he truly wanted what was best for his sister, though he couldn’t seem to accept that Connie had a right to her own mistakes. She turned her eyes to Connie and recognized the wistfulness in her friend’s voice when she answered. “You just refuse to believe that I’m completely happy the way I am, don’t you, Derek? You won’t let me forget the mess I made of my marriage to Stu, as if none of it would have happened if I had only listened to you.
“But how could I have listened to you, Derek? Where were you when I was seventeen and madly infatuated with a handsome young actor? Somewhere in Europe or Southeast Asia or the Middle East, giving advice, as usual. I never saw you, I hardly ever heard from you and yet I was supposed to conform exactly to your expectations for me. Well, forget it, Derek. I’ll do just fine without your advice now, just as I always have before. And if you’re disappointed with what I’ve become in the fifteen years since you went off in search of adventure, that’s just tough.”
“Connie—”
“Hey, Connie!” someone yelled from across the room. “Come on, let’s dance.”
“I’m on my way,” Connie yelled back, then tilted her head defiantly, looking at Derek even as she called across the room, “Let’s party till we drop! Who wants more punch?”
“All right! Bring on the punch!”
Spinning on one heel, Connie threw herself back into the party with what Summer sensed was a desperate act of defiance. Summer ached for her friend, whose self-confidence and self-image had been so badly damaged by her failed teenage marriage. Connie would never admit those weaknesses, just as Summer found it hard to reveal her own insecurities and vulnerabilities to others, but the buried scars were there, in both of the determinedly cheerful young women.
Summer also felt rather sorry for Derek, whose face had gone hard but whose eyes were still so sad. “Can’t you just accept her the way she is, Derek?” she asked suddenly, wanting to help despite her reluctance to get involved in a family matter. “You said you wanted to be her friend. Give her a chance to show you what a wonderful person she is.”
“Now who’s offering advice?” he questioned her shortly, then sighed. “Sorry. Listen, I think I’ll cut out now. I’ve had about all of this ‘fun’ I can take.”
For some strange reason Summer was reluctant to see him leave, but no hint of that reluctance was allowed to creep into her voice as she responded. “All right. I’m glad we had the opportunity to meet tonight, Derek. Perhaps we’ll see each other again soon.”
Derek turned his attention away from his sister to give Summer another one of those intense, unsettling looks. “You can count on it,” he told her. Then he drained the last of his Scotch and started across the room toward the door. Before he reached it, Bonnie Tyler’s wonderfully sandpapery voice sounded from the speakers in the chorus of “Holding Out For a Hero.” Summer had been watching his departure, so she was looking straight into his eyes when he turned, jerked his head toward the stereo to indicate that he’d recognized the words, then lifted two fingers in a kind of salute before he disappeared through the door.
Nice, Summer thought. Strong. Dependable. Too bad he was so darned proper.
“Well, what did you think of my brother?” Connie asked later. “You two certainly talked for a long time. Wasn’t he just the way I des
cribed?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Summer answered vaguely. “I think you might be underestimating him, Connie. He’s not as stern and inflexible as you’ve told me he is.”
“Uh-oh. Don’t tell me you’ve been taken in by his embassy charm.”
“I like him, Connie—for a respectable businessman-type. I think he’s unhappy about the distance between you. He implied that he’d like to be your friend.”
Connie snorted bitterly. “Friends accept each other the way they are, like you and I do, Summer. They don’t try to change each other.”
“Maybe Derek will figure that out for himself before long. Give him a chance,” Summer urged, repeating the words she’d used to Derek. “After all, he’s only been back in the country for a few months after being away for most of your life. You’ve hardly seen him during those years, so the two of you have had to start almost as strangers.”
“He still treats me as if I were ten years old,” Connie complained. “I’m so tired of him telling me that I could do better for myself than what I’m doing.”
“Give it time, Connie. He’s trying.”
“I’ll try,” Connie sighed. “It would please my parents if Derek and I learned to get along better,” she added, as if it really didn’t matter to her one way or the other. Then she rushed back into the middle of the party, obviously intending to put her brother completely out of her mind.
Summer shook her head in sympathy, never asking how two siblings could be so different. After all, her own family was a good example of the same phenomenon. Summer’s two lovely sisters were as different from each other as they were from Summer.
But Summer and Connie—now they were a well-matched pair. Summer had liked Connie Anderson from the day she’d first met her in the accounting office where they both worked. They loved to laugh together, and their sense of humor was almost identical. They enjoyed music, parties, people and comedy clubs. They both hid any fears or doubts they might carry inside them behind quick wits and ready smiles, each having her own good reasons for doing so.
Their only major difference was their approach to men. Trying to bolster her bruised ego, Connie flitted from one man to another with all the discrimination of a starving honeybee in a field of wildflowers. Summer dated frequently and enjoyed the company of men, but few of the relationships she’d tentatively entered during the past five years had progressed beyond friendship. She maintained that she was waiting for a flawless fairy-tale hero—though she knew she would never find one—which was her method of protecting herself from the type of pain and disillusionment she had experienced five years earlier. Only to herself would she admit she wouldn’t really know what to do with a fairytale hero if she found one. She suspected that a truly perfect man would make her all too aware of her own imperfections, as well as boring her to tears.
Other than that one relatively unimportant diversity, Summer and Connie could have hatched from the same egg. They continued to work in their uninspiring, undemanding jobs only to finance their more pleasurable pastimes, were the despair of their families and employers and the delight of their many friends. All in all, Summer reflected contentedly, fate had been very kind to allow her path to cross Connie Anderson’s.
She had no idea of how fate had capriciously decided to bring Connie’s brother into Summer’s life, as well.
2
SUMMER CAME partially awake with a muffled groan, reached out a hand and slapped at her alarm clock. When that failed to stop the persistent chiming that had disturbed her, she groped for the telephone receiver and pulled it to her ear. “Hello? What is it?” she demanded hoarsely, then glared at the instrument when it responded to her impatient question with a monotonous dial tone. Finally waking enough to realize that the chimes were the result of a determined finger pressed to the doorbell, she muttered an unladylike curse and snatched up her lightweight robe.
“Who on earth would be ringing my doorbell at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning?” she grumbled, stumbling across the party-littered living room to the door. “Derek!” she exclaimed in surprise, throwing open the door to reveal the impatient-looking man in the hallway. “What are you doing here?” And how could anyone look so crisp and alert at this hour of the morning? she added silently.
His gray eyes leisurely surveying her tumbled hair, sleep-blurred features and bedroom attire, Derek answered, “I’m here to see Connie. Is she still sleeping?”
“I’m sure she is,” Summer replied, leaning weakly against the edge of the door she held open. The slow, thorough journey of his eyes from the top of her head to her bare toes had affected her as if it had been his hand that had examined her, leaving her feeling a little shaken. God, it was too early in the morning to deal with this type of sensation. She hadn’t even had her coffee yet!
“Would you mind waking her?” Derek asked quietly in that gravelly voice that was like a sandpaper caress to her senses. “I thought I would take her out for breakfast.”
Summer’s habit had always been to lighten a tense moment with a wisecrack. Since Derek was making her decidedly uncomfortable with his unblinking pewter regard of her, she grinned impishly. “My goodness, is this an impulsive action?” she asked in mock astonishment, then continued without allowing him to respond. “It’s very nice of you, but you’d need an airplane to get to her before lunch. Connie’s in Los Angeles.”
Derek looked startled, and Summer imagined that one did not often catch that particular expression on his stern face. “Los Angeles? How can that be? I left her here less than ten hours ago.”
“You left the party only a couple of hours before Connie left for L.A.”
Derek ran an impatient hand through his tobacco-brown hair and attempted to make sense of the conversation. “My sister left for Los Angeles at midnight?” he asked slowly.
“That’s right. Please come in, Derek, and I’ll make us some coffee. I find it very hard to give explanations before I’ve had my caffeine fix.”
“I gathered there was some reason for our lack of communication,” Derek commented dryly. He took a step forward. Since Summer had not yet moved aside to allow him entrance into the apartment, she found herself suddenly standing so close to his sturdy chest that she could almost feel the rise and fall of his breath. Instinct told her to move hastily backward, but her reflexes seemed to be unusually slow. She stayed right where she was, staring into Derek’s unrevealing gray eyes like a paralyzed rabbit into bright headlights. Did she imagine it, or did something suddenly flicker in those silvery depths? Something dangerous and infinitely exciting.
“You are rather slow before you’ve had your coffee, aren’t you?” Derek murmured, and Summer imagined that his voice was a little rougher than usual. She took an awkward step backward, giving him just enough room to enter the apartment, his arm brushing her as he passed. Suppressing a quiver at the momentary contact, Summer closed the door and leaned against it, watching as Derek looked around the cluttered room with a slight moue of distaste. “Connie left you with the mess, I see,” he commented.
Summer cleared her throat soundlessly. “I told her I didn’t mind. I had nothing better to do this morning.” Her eyes wandered from his face, idly approving the lean strength beneath his crisp white shirt and sharply creased navy slacks. “Do you always dress so conservatively for a Saturday morning, or is this the proper attire for escorting one’s sister to breakfast?” she asked with deceptively mild curiosity, retreating again behind a facetious remark. “Do you even own a sweatshirt or a pair of jeans?”
“You’re hardly in a position to criticize my appearance,” Derek returned, eyeing her with an enigmatic half smile. Her short golden-brown hair was wildly disarrayed, and one recalcitrant lock stood straight up at her crown. She’d made a halfhearted effort to remove her makeup before falling into bed at three o’clock that morning, but there were still faint smudges of mascara on the fair, smooth skin beneath her heavy-lidded eyes. The garishly flowered pink-and-green satin kimono she wore cl
ashed appallingly with the silky legs of her pumpkin-colored pajamas. She was hardly dressed for seduction. Yet his entire body was taut, vibrating with a sudden surge of desire for her. He shoved his fists into his pockets to loosen the front of his snugly tailored slacks, his dark brows drawing downward in self-annoyance.
“I’ll change after I’ve had my coffee,” Summer answered with a shrug, unaware of Derek’s problem. “Can you tolerate instant, or should I brew a pot?”
“I’ll make the coffee. You go wash your face. You look like a panda bear. Cute but distracting.” Definitely distracting. Those soft smudges made his fingers itch to smooth them away. He needed a few minutes alone to remind himself of all the logical reasons that he should not take advantage of his sister’s absence to make a move on her attractive roommate.
When Summer didn’t immediately respond to his suggestion, Derek reached out with a faint smile to give her a light push in the direction of her bedroom. Since she had been precariously balanced on one foot, the other crossed in front of her, his slight shove caused her to wobble. Before Derek could make a grab to steady her, she fell to one knee, gasping in pain as she made contact with the uncarpeted wood floor.
“Summer, I’m sorry.” Derek was sincerely contrite as he knelt beside her to help her to her feet. “I certainly never meant to—”
“I know you didn’t,” she interrupted him, brushing off his apology. Clutching his arm, she rose slowly, flexing the offending knee when she was upright. “Don’t worry about it, Derek. It was simply an accident. I told you I’m not at my best before my coffee.”
“Are you all right? You look a little pale.” He had an arm around her shoulders for support.
Much more aware of his nearness than the ache in her knee, Summer swallowed and shrugged casually out of his supportive embrace. “I’m fine. I just landed on an old war injury,” she told him lightly. “Go make the coffee, Derek, while I remove my ‘cute but distracting’ panda mask.”
Hero in Disguise Page 2