Love's Dance

by Marianna Roberg

  "True..." Jaina conceded, thinking of her savings account, which was suffering from the move from Sydney.

  "So American rules don't apply. I'll pay. You can have whatever you want."

  She sighed. "Fine."

  They ordered, and the waitress moved off. Colin carefully arranged his silverware on the table top. Jaina watched in fascination as he lined them up perfectly spaced. Was he obsessive-compulsive or something?

  "Have you taken the time to take in the scenery?"

  Jaina jerked, startled. "Uh, not yet. Kinda hard when I work so much and the rest of the time my car is dead. It's very selective these days."

  "Ah..." He nodded. "There are lovely bike paths all over the city."

  One corner of her mouth quirked up. "That sounds nice. But, um... I don't have a bike."

  Colin looked scandalized. "You don't? Why not?"

  She looked at her fork as she said, "Because I can't ride one. That and I was scarred for life when I was about ten. I haven't ridden a bike since, well, my training wheels fell off."

  His brows drew together in consternation. "They just fell off?"

  "I suspect not... I think someone might have loosened them."

  "Foul play? Why?"

  Jaina shrugged. "My little sister is a prankster. And rather evil."

  "How... charming." His face said it was anything but.

  She rolled her eyes. "Be glad she's not in New Zealand."

  He gave her a lopsided, hesitant grin. "Why, would she try to take over 'Middle Earth' with her 'orcs'?"

  "Exactly."

  "You're kidding." Colin looked at her for reassurance that she couldn't possibly be related to someone that twisted. "Right? Please?"

  Restraining the urge to cackle, she said sweetly, "Sorry, no."

  "Ah." That seemed to be all he could say in response.

  Jaina watched him fold his napkin into a perfect square. She knew it, he must be OCD.

  "Well, why don't I try to teach you how to ride?"

  She blinked. "You'd do that?"

  "Sure."

  Nooooooo! she thought. Nooo! Bikes are bad!

  The voice said, But it's Colin. In bike shorts. Possibly more than once.

  "Uh... okay," she said.

  He smiled. "Cool."

  "I should probably get a bike," she said, as the waitress brought their food.

  "Only if you intend to learn. It'd be a bit difficult without one."

  "Yeah it would, wouldn't it?" Jaina contemplated the grilled chicken and pasta before her.

  "Though, somehow, I can see you with a pair of coconuts, telling people you're riding a bike."

  "Why would I do that? Coconuts are for invisible horses."

  "Ah, right." Colin looked abashed.

  "Of course I'm right." She grinned.

  He laughed. "Oh ho, now whose ego is too big?"

  She shook her head, gesturing with her fork. "No, see. I'm the woman. I'm always right. It's just the way things are."

  "Really? And where does this belief come from?"

  "Uh... It's... written down... somewhere."

  He didn't believe her. He didn't come anywhere near believing her. "Uh-huh. I'm sure. You know, it's conceivable you could be wrong about some things... once in a while."

  "Um, no," she said, thinking that there was at least one thing she wished she were wrong about.

  His sapphire eyes were unrelenting, boring into her. "No, I really think there could be."

  She had to ask. "Like what?"

  Afraid suddenly of his answer, she reached for her glass, but only succeeded in knocking it over. Water splashed across the wood-laminate surface.

  "Ooh, woops!" she exclaimed, red with mortification.

  "Having an Audrey moment, are we?" he drawled.

  Jaina looked up through straggling strands of golden-brown hair. "What?"

  "Never mind. I'll go get some more napkins."

  She watched him get up from the table, covertly watching him walk and noting the way his jeans fit. Turning even more red, she slapped her hands over her face.

  "What have I got myself into?"

  Chapter Six

  A week later found Jaina the new owner of a bike that was almost too big for her--it was the smallest one they'd been able to find and her toes barely touched the ground when she sat on the seat--as well as possessor of sore muscles she really hadn't known existed.

  And that was after a single lesson.

  That lesson had been a disaster. And Colin was still laughing at her. It really wasn't her fault that she hadn't been able to stay upright for more than five feet!

  Thus, three days after her lesson, she sat sequestered in her trailer, nursing stiff limbs. Gazing idly at her arm, she thought, 'At least I've got a real example of a scrape.'

  The door opened while she was studying the abrasion and Colin sauntered in, with a plastic container.

  Jaina eyed him, then the container. "What's that?"

  He grinned. "Biscuits. Chocolate chip ones."

  She raised an eyebrow. "You're not due until three. And if they're chocolate chip, they're cookies, not biscuits."

  "Ah. I bow, naturally, to your superior knowledge."

  "Smart ass." Jaina stood up. "What have I done to deserve cookie treatment?"

  "Nothing. This is merely another attempt to endear my charmingly boyish good looks to you."

  Jaina tried not to smirk, but failed. Ever since their discussion about makeup artists being overlooked, he'd been constantly reaffirming her importance in the scheme of things. It really was sweet of him, but since he sounded nine-tenths of the time like he was being facetious...

  For a moment, he looked surprised at her expression, then speedily responded, "I'm hurt you think I no longer have charmingly boyish good looks."

  Jaina pretended to study him. "Well... The makeup improves stuff."

  He snorted at the jibe. "Hence cookies."

  She took them, being careful not to make contact with his fingers. With the mood she was in, that wouldn't be good for her composure. "Thank you."

  She prized the lid off and pulled out a cookie. They were golden brown, with tempting chocolate morsels inside. Her mouth watered as she regarded it. Carefully, she took a bite.

  Then she started coughing.

  Colin was instantly alarmed. "Are you all right?"

  Jaina forced the mouthful down. "Um. Did you make these?"

  He looked reluctant to admit to it. "Uh. Yes."

  Recovered from her choking fit, Jaina set the cookies down on the counter. "Too much flour."

  "Oh. Well. I can't cook, can I?" He gave her a "charmingly boyish" sheepish smile.

  Jaina plucked a paper towel off the roll nearby and wiped her hands. "I can give you lessons, I guess."

  "YES!!!" he exclaimed, then hastily rearranged his features and said calmly, "That would be very kind of you."

  "A thirty-two year old bachelor who can't cook." Jaina shook her head. "It's shameful."

  "Um. Yes. I'm sad and pathetic and in the autumn years of my life." He gave her pleading puppy-dog eyes, an effect somewhat spoiled by the hint of a smirk on his full lips.

  Jaina averted her eyes, stomach doing gymnastics abruptly. "You're hardly over the hill, bub."

  "Oh."

  Her green eyes sparkled, laughing at him. "For such a brilliant comedian, you're awfully slow on the uptake."

  He cleared his throat. "Happens in my age. We get old. Can't think as well, get slower."

  "Oh, puh-leeeeze! You're thirty-two!" She threw a wedge-shaped makeup sponge at him.

  Colin caught the sponge. He looked at it as he said, "I can only be smug over what I once had. Millions falling at my feet."

  Snickering under her breath, Jaina put the lid back on the cookies. "Are there even millions in New Zealand?"

  Ignoring that, he continued, "Now I resort to store-bought cookies as bribes so I can look good."

  "You said you baked those."

  For
a moment, he gaped at her, his lightning-fast wit momentarily stalled. Finally, he said, "I lied. The oven frightens me. I cower in fear of it."

  Amused, Jaina said, "Okay, well, I guess showing you how to be its master will be your first lesson."

  "Great. Is tonight good?"

  She hesitated. First she'd agreed to take bike riding lessons, and now she was going to give him cooking lessons. And this was after she'd resolved to avoid him! "Fine," she sighed.

  He gave her a knee-melting grin. "I'll pick you up at eight!"

  As he dashed out, dropping the sponge, Jaina muttered her newly-acquired mantra. "What have I got myself into?"

  ♥♥♥

  That evening, Jaina was running late when she got home. She had just enough time to shower and change clothes before Colin arrived. She was searching through the cupboards for a cookbook when the doorbell rang.

  Jaina dropped the cookbook she was holding and bolted for the door, vaulting over a rather surprised Jason, who was lying on the floor, playing "Candyland" with Clarissa, who, incidentally, was trouncing him.

  "Where's the orc horde?" Jason called, sitting up.

  Ignoring her brother, Jaina smoothed her hair, feeling foolish. Of course he wasn't going to care about her hair! Then she opened the door.

  Colin smiled in greeting. "Hey. You ready?"

  "Just a minute. I've got to fetch the cookbook. Come on in."

  "Jay..." Jason met them in the foyer. He trailed off when he saw that his little sister had a male visitor.

  "Jason, this is Colin." Jaina stared daggers at her brother, pleading him to keep his mouth shut. "Colin, this is my brother, Jason."

  For once, Jason obeyed his sister's mental command, giving her a vague, momentary hope that she'd finally developed telepathic abilities.

  "Pleased to meet you," Jason said pleasantly, sticking out his hand.

  "Same," Colin said, returning the handshake. "You have a lovely home."

  "Thanks." Jason looked at Jaina. He raised one eyebrow.

  "I'm giving Colin cooking lessons, in return for bike lessons he's giving me," Jaina said. "We're going over to his place."

  "That's nice," Jason said, voice blandly pleasant, though his sister could see one vein in his temple bulging. What, she wondered, was her brother thinking?

  "Do you know where the cookie book is?" she asked, in an effort to distract him.

  "You'd have to ask Teniel. Actually, I think I'll do that."

  Jason ran up the stairs. Jaina tried not to sigh as she turned to Colin.

  "This could take a bit. C'mon, I'll introduce you to Chris and Clarissa."

  Colin shrugged, and followed her into the living room, where Chris had taken over where his father had left. The boy looked up briefly, but Clarissa stared at Colin.

  "Whozat?" she asked, eyes huge in a sea of freckles.

  "This is Colin," Jaina said. She glanced at him, then motioned to the kids. "My niece and nephew, Christian and Clarissa."

  Her visitor nodded, smiling. "Hello."

  Clarissa turned wide eyes from Colin to her aunt. "Is he your boyfriend?" she asked in awed tones.

  For one long, horrified moment, Jaina stared at Rissa, trying to squelch a tide of red she was certain was flooding her face. She studiously avoided looking at Colin.

  Fortunately, it was he who saved her. He gave the little girl one of his smiles, and said, "Jaina is just a friend."

  "That's too bad," Clarissa said. "You're cute."

  Jaina prayed that the ground would open up and suck her in.

  "Thank you," Colin said solemnly. Was Jaina mistaken, or could she hear a hint of laughter in his voice? Was it aimed at her, or the child?

  "You should be," the little girl continued. "Aunt Jaina always talks about you."

  Death was the next wish on her list. Jaina made a gurgling noise, face flaming, but was fortunately saved from saying anything by Teniel's entrance into the room.

  The woman looked from Jaina's scarlet face to Colin's carefully schooled features, then to the little girl who was staring at them in fascination. Obviously, Jaina was in need of some rescue. "Jaina, could you help me find the cookbook?"

  Jaina almost tripped, she stood up so fast. "Certainly!"

  Behind her, she could have sworn Colin was giggling.

  ♥♥♥

  As they got in the car, Colin motioned to the cookbook Jaina carried. "What's that?"

  "A cookbook," she said, wondering if he'd been totally absent earlier. She held it up so he could see "The Cookie Book! 101 Cookie Recipes" clearly written on the front. "I wasn't sure if you had one. Or the ingredients."

  "Uh... Considering how often I eat out... I probably don't."

  "Well, then, let's stop at the store, shall we?"

  He shrugged, and pointed the car for the store nearest his house.

  A good hour later, Jaina--carrying the bag of vanilla, brown sugar, chocolate chips, and cocoa powder--followed Colin into his immaculate townhouse. The owner himself carried the flour, some new containers, and the brand-new cookie sheet.

  "Whoa," she said, stopping inside the door, taking in all the white, white, and more white. There were a few paintings that Jaina wouldn't under torture call legitimate art, and they added a few splashes of much-needed color. Other than that...

  "You like it?" Colin asked, noticing he'd lost her and coming back from the kitchen doorway.

  "It's depressing!" she cried. "It's very post-modern, Frank Lloyd Wright-on-crack, which is interesting, but... How can you live here?"

  At the look on his face, she amended, "It's not the furniture, it's the lack of color. It's a little, um... Frankly, it reminds of a room with padded walls. Or a psychotic homicidal computer named Hal."

  "Well, it's good you don't live here, then," he said, a hint of offended pride in his voice.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I know this stuff's expensive, and it matches fantastically, but... It doesn't seem very you."

  "What would seem 'me'?" he asked, a puzzled look settling on his bold features.

  Jaina shrugged. She knew she was just covering for her own discomfort. "Well, the modern look works, it's just the, uh, white. I could see you comfortably in Nelson Moss' apartment in Sweet November."

  "I haven't seen that."

  "Okay, now I'm making you watch it. Personally, Sara's apartment is more my style, but..."

  "Sara Whitman?" he asked, referring to his co-star, who played Nora, the main character.

  "No, Sara Deever, Charlize Theron's character in the movie."

  "Ah." He looked around the apartment for a moment, then motioned for her to follow him into the kitchen, which was just as empty, stark, and colorless.

  Jaina carefully set her bag on the counter. "I'm sorry. I really should think before I speak."

  Colin shrugged. "I probably do need more color around here. No wonder I don't spend more time inside. All of my time is spent on the computer or out in the garden, either gardening or reading a book in the hammock."

  "I've heard about this garden. You'll have to show me while the cookies are baking."

  Colin nodded. He looked at the baking goods spread across the counter. "All right, what do we do first?"

  Jaina flipped the book open to the recipe they needed. "Two and a half cups of flour, three-fourths cup sugar, same of the brown sugar, two eggs, teaspoon vanilla, half a teaspoon baking soda, a cup of butter. And the chips. This says for three-quarters of the bag-"

  "I vote for all of them."

  Jaina grinned. "My kind of man."

  Colin cooed, "Oh, really?"

  She rolled her eyes. "Cram it, Pierce."

  Together, they gathered the ingredients. Jaina demonstrated measuring, then began mixing the ingredients together.

  "Places like this bother you, don't they?" he asked suddenly.

  Jaina jerked, scattering a handful of chocolate chips across the counter. Her green eyes were wide as she looked at him. "What?"

  "My house.
Places like this. What was the term? 'Postmodern, Frank Lloyd Wright on crack.'"

  She eyed him warily. "I don't know what you mean."

  Colin picked up one of the chips. He put it in his mouth. "C'mon. I've seen how you love old buildings, Victorians, castles, even half-collapsed barns. The set for Walter's place, and for Nora's, you're perfectly comfortable. But Kevin's place, my house, even the hospital set. They unnerve you."

  She sighed, thinking he could see everything, and yet nothing. "Okay, yes, they do. Happy?"

  Colin shrugged. "Why do you think that is?"

  "I dunno. According to my mother, the New Age fruitcake, it could have been a trauma either in my early childhood, or in a past life."

  He stopped with a chocolate morsel halfway to his lips. "You're kidding."

  "Nope." Jaina smiled ruefully. "I don't have a thing against New Agers. But when my mom hit menopause, she went cuckoo."

  "How so?"

  "Well, she was a normal mom, thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Solomon."

  Colin leaned on his forearms. "Were they overly strict or something?"

  “No, they were greasers."

  "Greasers?" He looked confused.

  Jaina nodded. "Yeah, you ever see the movie Grease? Y'know John Travolta's character? My grandpa was just like him in high school."

  She finished gathering the chips and put them in the dough. "Grandma keeps insisting that the guy who wrote that was in their group of friends, and it's just the tale of their friends, with the names changed to protect the innocent. Grandpa says it isn't."

  She paused, then added, "He says that Grandma's nickname in high school really was Rizzo."

  His expression was one of total disbelief.

  "C'mon, I'm totally kidding!" she laughed. "About the Grease part, anyway."

  She pushed the bowl across the counter and made Colin stir for a while. "Anyway, Mom was, like, the opposite of her parents growing up."

  "Like Sandy?"

  "Just like her. She met Dad when she was eighteen, the year she graduated. They went to rival high schools. They got married when they were nineteen, and Jason was born a year later. So Mom was June Cleaver to a T, until about three years ago. Maybe four. Now she's..."

  "Madame Yolanda with her crystal ball?" he suggested with a quirky smile.