Yours for the Night

by Samantha Hunter

  “His name is Neal. Don’t ya just love that name? It’s so, I don’t know, down-home.” She smiled. “He’s kinda cute, not as built as Jack, but cute in that nerdy I-work-on-my-computer-in-the-basement kind of way, you know? And he even had the thick, black-framed glasses.”

  Raine couldn’t quite hold back her amusement when Gwen sighed, but motioned for her to continue. At least this was taking her mind off her own problems.

  “Okay, so you met this guy Neal and…”

  “He asked me why I was there, and I told him I was looking for Jack, and then we got talking and I asked him out.”

  “You don’t waste time, Gwen.”

  “Life is short. Anyway, we had a very nice dinner Saturday night, talked a lot, you know, got to know each other a little bit, and then went back to his place and just made out for hours.”

  “Made out?”

  Gwen sighed again. “Just kissing. Kissing and kissing and more kissing. I haven’t done that since high school, and it was terrific. Hot, sweaty, got-my-panties-soaked kissing that went on for half the night and then we just said good-night. We’re going out again this Friday.” Gwen smiled, and blushed a little, and Raine smiled back.

  “Sounds nice. I’m glad for you.” And she was. It was her turn to sigh, though, and she blocked out the images of what she had been doing for hours on Saturday night, and tried not to remember the feel of Jack’s mouth on her skin.

  “So, are you going to see him again?” Gwen’s voice broke through the fog as she headed to the door.

  “Hmm? Who?”

  “Jack.”

  Raine screwed up her mouth and shook her head. “Gwen, I told you—”

  Gwen put up her hand. “Okay, okay, just want you to be open to the possibilities. You know that’s half the battle. If you are open to things happening in life, they tend to work out.”

  “Yeah, well, you have to be careful what you are open to.” She’d been way too open lately, she thought, a wave of embarrassment washing over her.

  Gwen made a face. “Pessimist. Focus on the positive, at least you got laid by a gorgeous guy, right?” She grinned. “I’m back to work. Maybe I can break something on my computer so Neal can come up and fix it. I’d like to watch him bending over to get down into all those wires under the desk.”

  Raine smiled. “In that case, may all your files crash today.” Gwen giggled and waved as she left.

  * * *

  RAINE PARKED HER CAR in front of the castlelike building of the Witch Museum and walked across the street to the Salem Common, a large, open-area park where people came to walk their dogs, play and hang out.

  It was a place where you could be by yourself but not alone. Exactly what she was looking for. It was too early to go home. She stared up at the looming statue of Salem’s first settler, Roger Conant, and felt a shiver run down her spine. The statue always seemed so eerie to her. She turned her back on him and entered the park.

  Some intrepid dog walkers were exercising their canine friends, and groups of children were having snowball fights, their shrieks of joy cutting through the crisp air. She started at the closest corner and followed the maze of walkways without paying much attention to which way she was moving. Snowmen in various stages of meltdown stood here and there along the walk, and she smiled as she walked past the form of a snow angel frozen into the snow. The snow lit up the night; she loved the way it looked like diamonds scattered all over the ground.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  She was startled to see Duane fall into step beside her.

  “Um, sure.”

  “I usually walk through here on my way home, and saw you get out of your car over there. I live just over on Oliver. How about you? You live farther out, right?”

  “Yeah, on Chestnut. I just felt like a walk. Long day.”

  He nodded and they turned the corner near the ornate structure known as the bandshell, a domed stage resembling a very large gazebo. It had stood there since Salem’s early days.

  “Listen, Raine, I was wondering how the column is going. I know I was a little hard on you about it before, and if you don’t want to meet his guy, you don’t have to. It was wrong of me to push you. We can work the article without the meeting.”

  Now she really didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t ready to let Duane know she had met Jack, and had no idea how to explain what had happened. She tried to sound unconcerned and professional.

  “Thanks, Duane. I’ll let you know how it works out.”

  They walked by a group of children in the playground and Duane bent, picked up a handful of snow and whipped a snowball into the group, smacking a young boy on the arm. Delighted yells followed, and before she knew it, they were running down the walk, being chased and pelted. Duane laughed, and she joined in.

  “I forget,” he said. “Never instigate a snowball fight when you are outnumbered.”

  Raine smiled. “I think that is the first one I have been in, so you’re the expert.”

  He was looking at her differently, and she blinked when he raised his hand to brush some snow out of her hair.

  “You have a pretty smile. I wish you would show it off more often.”

  The hairs on her neck stood up in awareness, and she took a step back from his hand. This was not boss-to-employee chat, at least not the kind she was interested in. He put his hands in his pockets, and bent his head down for a moment, and then looked at her, chagrined.

  “Sorry, I guess that wasn’t too smooth.”

  “Um, Duane, you know I like you, you’re a good boss, but I don’t think—” He held his hands up and interrupted her, laughing in a kind of embarrassed way that didn’t make her feel any better.

  “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve just been trying to screw up the courage to ask you out for a while. I know you keep to yourself a lot, and I figured you wouldn’t be someone who would get involved with anyone at the office, but I thought, hey, what the heck.”

  Raine held her breath, thinking of Jack, and felt her stomach sink a little more. Duane continued.

  “And then, here I am forcing you to go meet some other guy, and I couldn’t believe how stupid that was.” He laughed again and kicked some snow, looking at her with intense, blue eyes.

  Raine couldn’t believe what she was hearing, and had no idea what to do with it.

  “Duane, I just don’t think going out with you is a good idea—”

  He looked down again, and nodded, and she searched for something, anything, intelligent to say.

  “I mean, we work together, you are my boss. And I like you, I do, but you know, things like this never work.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. I knew that, but seeing you every day, and then thinking of you going to meet some stranger—well, I figured…hell, I don’t know what I figured. But hey, I took my shot, and now we know.” He tried to sound offhand, but Raine could hear the strain and felt terrible, though she wasn’t quite sure why she should.

  “I’m sorry, Duane.” It was all she could think to say. She was freezing, her teeth were beginning to chatter, and she couldn’t feel any more awkward.

  “No, I know, it’s okay. Listen, let me walk you back to your car. You’re freezing.”

  She sighed and nodded. They walked across the park to her car in silence, and she was relieved to finally say good-night and watch him walk away. The situation was just surreal. She had never picked up one hint from Duane that he was interested in her—and she had never thought of him that way, not once. He could have his pick of just about any woman in the company, and he was asking her out?

  Life was getting too strange.

  She drove home with the radio blaring. She just didn’t want to think about any of it anymore. She grabbed her mail, surprised to see so much of it, on her way in the door.

  She put her coat on the hook, and looked through the stack. Something wasn’t right. These all came from the creditors she had just sent checks to. Opening the first envelope, she discovered a thank-you letter
for her recent payment, but they had issued a refund check since her account was already paid in full. Another assumed she had overpaid and sent back the check. Raine blinked, and opened the other envelopes—all the same. Every one of the payments she had just made to credit cards, a parking ticket, and even her student loans, was sent back, and she was informed her accounts were paid in full.

  How could this be? She slumped against the door. Just what she needed. Now she had to try to figure out this mess, resend all these payments and get this straightened out before her credit was completely destroyed. Just wonderful. She was already behind on her column, she had two men she had to avoid romantic entanglements with at work, and tomorrow she would have to spend half the day on the phone getting this mess fixed. What next?

  * * *

  JACK TOOK AIM at the multicolored dart board about twelve feet away. He rocketed his arm forward, and the red dart flew and just hit the board, barely sticking to the outside edge. He grunted in disgust as a couple of the guys he was out with cheered and slapped him on the back. They were happy because with that crappy shot, the next round was on him. He was off his game, to say the least, but he lost fair and square. Heading to the bar, he put in the order and went back to the table.

  “So, Jack, where have you been lately?” Greg, a programmer with a high-profile company in Boston, tilted his head toward the dartboard. “It’s been a while since I’ve seen you play that badly, not that I’m not grateful.” Greg, an incorrigible flirt, eyed the waitress appreciatively as she placed a tray with several bottles of beer in the center of the table. Greg watched the young woman walk away, and sighed lustily.

  “Now, if you had a pretty thing like that at home, we could understand why you might not come up for air for a while.”

  The other men laughed, and tipped their beers, and Jack just shook his head.

  “Do you ever get your mind out of the gutter, Greg? No, don’t answer, I already know. But if you got laid as much as you talked about it, we’d all be a lot happier.”

  A howl of laugher went up, and Greg took the jibe in good humor, shrugging and taking a swig of beer before sending one back Jack’s way.

  “Sounds like maybe I hit a nerve there. Did you get back together with Marley? Or did you meet another honey who dumped you out on your keister—again?”

  Jack winced inwardly, Greg’s comment hitting the target spot-on, but he wasn’t about to share that with these guys. And besides, tonight was not about women, past or present. He was happy to be out with his friends, having his evenings back, playing darts, drinking beer, talking trash.

  “Yeah, well, part of why Marley dumped me, as you so eloquently put it, is because, as you know, she hated me spending one minute out with the guys—that would mean you.”

  They clinked bottles and talked about the usual things, which was good with him. But if he was dead-honest with himself, he felt restless. He was missing Nilla—the nightly conversations, the sense of connection. And he was pissed at Raine. It messed him up to both want and miss and be furious with the one person at the same time. He took another swig of beer, and listened to the voices that surrounded him, trying to enjoy himself.

  The nice thing about talking with the guys was that they didn’t complicate anything. The conversation rolled over weather, politics, sports, women and work. He finished his beer, and joined in for a bit, but his heart wasn’t in it. Standing up, he said his goodbyes, and headed home.

  However, he didn’t really feel like going home. It was early, and he was too jumpy to be banging around the house alone. Driving into the parking lot near the office, he decided to catch up on a little work. Neal had closed the gap in the security program. The kid had done a good job. But that morning, there were problems again. Jack just couldn’t figure it.

  He could shut down the computer, and then, when he rebooted, the problem would just show back up again. There appeared to be a simple glitch in the programming, but it wouldn’t patch. The bug just kept reappearing. He supposed it was nothing earth-shattering, but it was annoying, and it gave him something to focus on instead of thinking about Raine.

  Hours later, his head was aching, and his stomach finally would not be ignored. He had missed lunch, not really wanting to admit that if he went to the second-floor kitchen or to the cafeteria, he might run into Raine. He wasn’t hiding, not exactly. He was avoiding. It was a different thing entirely. He grabbed his coat and headed out.

  It was late. The building felt hollow as he walked through it to the exit. On his way past the offices on the first floor, he heard a noise over past the desks, and stopped for a moment to listen again. Someone working late? He heard something hit the floor in a solid clunk and decided to take a look.

  Rounding the corner of the main desk, he was surprised to find a couple in a passionate clinch, and his eyes narrowed as he thought he recognized the profile of one of his men. It was Neal. Wrapped around, as far as he could tell, the woman who had been in Raine’s office the day he had been in there. And here he thought Neal was all work and no play.

  Trying to retrace his steps and make a quiet exit, he misjudged his step and stumbled over a trash bin, cursing. Too late to be inconspicuous. The two lovebirds heard the clatter and were now looking at him in surprise, while he set the bin upright and tried to look apologetic.

  Neal turned red up to his ears, and his friend—Raine’s friend—seemed a little less concerned as she grinned, then laughed, tugging down her lacy, skintight shirt. Her voice was full of mischief, and Jack couldn’t resist smiling a little.

  “Oops, caught in the act, Neal, and by your boss.”

  Neal did not look as amused, from what Jack could tell, and he tried to put him at ease as much as possible.

  “Sorry to interrupt, folks. Just heard a noise and didn’t suspect, ah…”

  “Sorry, sir, um, Jack.” Neal seemed to relax a little when he realized he wasn’t going to get chewed out. “I just bumped into Gwen on my way out, and we got talking, and…”

  Jack held a hand up. “No need to explain to me, Neal. It’s after hours. But you might want to take the party elsewhere.”

  Gwen grinned and threw her arms around Neal, smiling at Jack. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, sure. Neal, find me in the morning, that bug is popping up again.”

  Neal just nodded as Jack waved and walked away. It wasn’t hard to see that the woman, Gwen, would be a handful. Very pretty, and probably more than a little wild—definitely not a woman he would have pegged as Neal’s type. But what the heck did he know?

  Jack sighed, feeling a little old as he walked out of the building. It had been a long time since he had felt as carefree and crazy as Neal and Gwen. It seemed that as you got older, there were always more complications, and romance meant something else entirely than it did before. It all became more serious, and so…adult.

  As he emerged outside, the cold slapped him, and he breathed it in. He liked the cold; it freshened him. Shaking off his mood, he headed down the street to a local café where he knew he could find something decent for dinner. He felt like being around people, even though he suspected that that would not ease the blues that were settling around him.

  7

  RAINE GOT AN early start, plunging through the bitter cold to get to the office so that she could take care of the problem with her accounting and not get too far behind in her work. Her car didn’t have time to heat up, and she still had to walk from the parking lot. She shivered all the way in and wondered why she hadn’t requested a transfer to the Miami office.

  A few hours later, discouraged and frustrated beyond reason, she hung up the phone from the last call. The story was the same across the board. As far as the records said—their records, not hers—her credit and loan accounts, and her parking ticket, were all paid up, and she was not required to send any more payments. Something was wrong, but no one would believe her. In fact, it was quite clear they all thought she was nuts.

  She took pride in keeping her
finances together on her own, not overspending and sticking to a budget that she planned. She did not take or ask for one cent of her father’s money, and she liked looking after her own affairs. He wasn’t really her father anyway, he was just the man who had adopted her. They certainly didn’t have anything even resembling a relationship you could call familial.

  She heard Gwen’s laughter echoing down the hall, and looked up to see her friend in the doorway, attached to a tall, thin, dark-haired and serious-looking young man who blushed furiously though his smile as Gwen squeezed his butt, not realizing Raine was able to see them through her partially open door. Raine cleared her throat, and Gwen turned her head, laughing.

  “Oh, Raine, I’d hoped you weren’t too busy. I wanted you to meet Neal!” She stepped into the office, dragging Neal behind her. “Neal, this is my good friend Raine Covington, and Raine, this is Neal Scott. Neal works downstairs in the IT department.”

  Neal smiled at Gwen, and held out his hand to Raine, closing cool, dry fingers over hers.

  “Nice to meet you, Ms. Covington.”

  Raine smiled. “Hi, Neal. Nice to finally meet you.”

  Gwen looked up at Neal brightly. “Isn’t he just adorable, Raine?”

  Raine smiled as she watched the color deepen in poor Neal’s cheeks. He obviously was not used to being publicly adored. He’d better get used to it fast if he wanted to be with Gwen. So, this was the man who could kiss for hours on end? The contrast between him and Gwen was a stark one, but the opposites-attracted rule held fast. She smiled at him.

  “So what do you do, Neal?”

  He shifted a little, and disengaged himself from Gwen. “I mostly do C-Sharp application development and Solaris network administration. You know, troubleshooting.”

  Raine nodded as if she had some idea what he was talking about, though she hadn’t a clue.

  “Sounds interesting.” She smiled pleasantly and turned her attention to Gwen. “Um, Gwen, I wondered if you had a minute sometime today?”

  Gwen nodded. “Sure. Neal has to get back down to the Batcave anyway—isn’t that a riot, they call it that? So maybe you are Bruce Wayne, eh?”