by Gina Wilkins
Throwing some money on the table, Dan glanced at his watch. “I need to run by the station for a few minutes. I’ll walk you to your car.”
“Who said I was ready to leave?”
Dan went still for a moment. “You’re through eating, aren’t you?”
She glanced toward the dance floor, which was just starting to come to life. “Yes, but I’m not necessarily in a hurry to get home. There’s nothing waiting for me there.”
“So you’re going to do what? Hang out here drinking beer and dancing with cowboy Bob? Is that why you got all gussied up tonight with the hair and makeup and the low-cut dress?”
So he had noticed the changes. And this was his way of acknowledging it—not as a compliment but a criticism. She slammed both hands on the table. “His name is Bo. And, yes, maybe I’ll dance with him. Maybe I’ll even sleep with him. Heck, I could have a quickie with him out in the parking lot and then come back for a tumble with Jimmy.”
Her quietly furious outburst made Dan’s jaw clench, his eyes going hard and narrow. “Just what the hell is your problem tonight?”
She stood and leaned over the table, making sure he had a good view of what Jimmy and Bo had seemed to find intriguing despite her small size. “My problem is that I’ve grown up, Dan Meadows. And it seems like just about every guy in this town has finally figured that out—except for you.”
Before he could come up with an answer, she straightened and smoothed her dress, trying to get a grip on her temper. “Thanks for dinner. Now I’ll let you get back to work—I’m sure that’s where you’d rather be, anyway.”
She turned on one heel and walked away without looking back. A group of singles was beginning to gather in the far corner of the big room, laughing, flirting, drinking and dancing. It wasn’t Lindsey’s usual type of entertainment, but maybe it was time for her to make some changes. She’d spent the past two years taking care of her father and fantasizing about Dan. But her father was gone, and now she was tired of sitting in her house alone, waiting for something that was obviously never going to happen.
Bo saw Lindsey approaching, grinned and pulled out a chair. The music was louder in this corner, as were the patrons, so he practically had to yell for her to hear him. “Have you ditched the chaperon?”
Chaperon. That was exactly the way Dan had been acting, Lindsey mused angrily. Or like an older brother. “Yeah, he’s gone,” she agreed without looking around to make sure that was true. “You said something about a dance?”
Bo promptly stood, dropped his hat on his chair and ran a hand through his dark hair. “Yes, ma’am.”
She wasn’t really planning to sleep with Bo—or anyone else—tonight. But there was no need for Dan to know that. It was none of his business how she chose to spend her Friday evening. And that was his choice, she reminded herself.
Damn the man.
Dan was still seething late the next afternoon. Every time he thought about Lindsey—too many times in the past few hours for his peace of mind—he got mad all over again.
What had gotten into her last night? In all the years he’d known her, he’d never seen her act that way. Never heard her talk that way.
He could still see her leaning over the table, green fire in her eyes, a flush of temper on her face, the gaping neckline of her sexy black dress revealing slender, creamy curves that he was male enough to appreciate. He felt vaguely guilty about the number of times he’d mentally replayed that picture…not to mention the unwanted stirrings of response he felt every time he did so.
Hell, he was no better than Jimmy or cowboy Bo, practically drooling over her—even worse, because he was old enough to know better. He’d known Lindsey Gray since she was in pigtails, damn it.
She wasn’t a little girl now.
He might have followed that line of thought a bit further, but he was distracted just then by his work.
Someone had called in another fire.
Lindsey showed up at the scene, of course, a camera around her neck and a notebook in her hand. It annoyed Dan greatly that for the first time her presence distracted him from his work. He had never allowed that to happen before—and he was impatient with himself for doing so now. It had to be because he was still perturbed with her behavior last night, wondering what she’d been trying to prove.
She still looked different, he noted as she marched toward him, her reporter’s look of determination on her face. Her new haircut made her coppery hair lie more softly around her face than the choppy style she’d worn before. Her green eyes were highlighted again by judicious use of cosmetics, and her stubbornly set mouth glistened with a light coat of shiny gloss. Instead of her usual jeans and sweatshirt, she wore a soft-looking, heather-colored mock turtleneck and close-fitting black slacks with black boots.
She looked like a classy, competent, professional woman, he realized abruptly. A far cry from the grubby urchin he’d once known so well. Even as he reluctantly admired the woman, he found himself missing the urchin.
Sidestepping a water hose, Lindsey stopped in front of Dan. “Looks like they wrapped it up quickly.”
He nodded. “We were fortunate this time. A delivery driver saw the smoke from his van and called it in. The fire trucks arrived before the fire had spread from the kitchen to the rest of the house.”
Lindsey turned to survey the smoke-darkened back of the frame bungalow. “You’re certain this fire has nothing to do with the arsonist you’re looking for?”
“Yeah. Mrs. O’Malley went next door to visit her neighbor, got distracted by a television program over there and forgot she’d left something cooking on the stove. I came by to make sure, of course, as soon as I heard there was a fire run in this neighborhood, because it’s in the same general area as the arson fires, but I’m convinced this was totally unrelated.”
She nodded and made a note in her pad.
As the firefighters gathered their equipment in preparation to leave, Dan let his thoughts wander away from work again. “You look…well rested,” he said to Lindsey.
“I was home before ten last night,” she said a bit curtly. “Alone. Are you happy?”
He didn’t understand the distance that seemed to be developing between them—and he didn’t like it. Maybe it was his fault. He cleared his throat. “Listen, you were right about last night. It was none of my business if you wanted to stay and have fun with your friends.”
She didn’t seem at all mollified by his concession. In fact, it only seemed to annoy her more. “Well, gee, thanks. I’m so glad I have your approval. Now I can just go party my toes off without a second thought.”
With that she turned and stormed away, apparently intent on interviewing the resident of the damaged house.
Dan stared after her, utterly bewildered. “What the…?”
“Are you and Lindsey at it again?” a woman’s asked in wry amusement from behind him.
He turned to find Serena North, her hands on her hips, her head tilted to one side as she studied him. “Serena,” he greeted her. “What are you doing here?”
“I heard about the fire, so I came by to check it out. Mrs. O’Malley is a good friend of my mother’s.”
“She’s fine. Upset and embarrassed, of course, but it could have been much worse. As it is, she only gutted her kitchen. She could have lost the house had the fire not been called in so quickly.”
“Poor dear. I’m sure Mother will be here soon to help out.”
Dan found himself watching Lindsey again, noting how sympathetically she seemed to be dealing with the distraught older woman. “What’s with her, anyway?”
Serena frowned in confusion. “Mrs. O’Malley?”
“No, Lindsey,” he answered impatiently. “Has she been acting strangely around you recently?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. She’s made a few changes in her appearance, of course, but every woman does that periodically.”
“It’s more than her appearance. It’s her attitude. Seems like she’s had a real
chip on her shoulder for the past week or so. Maybe it’s just around me.”
Serena smiled. “I don’t see anything new about that. You and Lindsey are always squabbling. You telling her she’s getting in your way, her insisting that as a reporter she has a right to be in the middle of everything.”
Dan should have found that admittedly accurate description reassuring, but somehow he didn’t. “I think it’s more than that. She just doesn’t seem like herself.”
Turning to study Lindsey, who was now talking to the fire chief as he prepared to depart, Serena looked momentarily concerned. “I’m sure she’s still adjusting to the loss of her father, even though it had been expected for a long time. It couldn’t have been easy for her, losing both parents within five years, and Lindsey still so young. Maybe it would be easier for her if B.J. was around more, so she wouldn’t feel so alone.”
“She’s hardly alone. She has more friends than anyone in town.”
“That isn’t the same as family. You know that.”
Was that Lindsey’s problem? Was she missing her parents, her brother? “Maybe that’s it. I’ll try to take it easier on her.”
Serena laughed and patted his arm. “Start treating Lindsey like a poor orphan and she’s liable to tear off a layer of your skin. She’ll work this out in her own way, Dan.”
“And if that means moving away? She’s talking about selling her house, you know. Moving to a bigger news market, like Dallas or Atlanta.”
Serena frowned for a moment, then smoothed her expression with a little shrug. “I hadn’t heard that, but I guess it doesn’t really surprise me. There isn’t anything to hold her here now that her father’s gone. There are definitely more prospects for her—career-wise and socially—in a bigger city.”
“Socially?”
“Well, of course. There aren’t that many single men her age around here. I’ve heard her say she’d like to marry someday, start a family—she loves children, you know. Not every woman can be as lucky as I was and find the perfect guy literally lying in her own backyard,” she added with a slight smile.
Dan was still struggling with the image of Lindsey married with children. His first instinct was that she was too young—but then he remembered that she’d just passed her twenty-sixth birthday. Where had the time gone?
He tried to picture her with some of the single men in town—specifically, the two who’d seemed so interested in her at Gaylord’s last night. Jimmy and Bo. Neither of whom were even remotely right for Lindsey. Nor was any other guy who sprang to his mind just then.
Her interview with the fire chief completed, Lindsey closed her notebook while Dan watched. With a little wave to Serena that might have been meant to include Dan, she walked to her car, which she’d parked in a line of others at the curb.
Was she walking differently? Adding a little sway to her hips that hadn’t been there before? Or was he just noticing she walked that way? Maybe it was the boots. Or maybe he was spending too much time focusing on Lindsey when he should be concentrating on his own business, he thought irritably, deliberately turning away. He changed the subject abruptly, suggesting to Serena that they should go talk to Mrs. O’Malley.
Serena immediately agreed, and Dan went back to work—though he felt the questions about Lindsey hovering at the back of his mind, waiting to nag him when he was alone again.
Maybe he did need a vacation.
Edstown wasn’t known for its social opportunities, but there were three events that locals turned out for faithfully—the Independence Day celebration in July, the Fall Festival at the beginning of October and the March Mixer. The origins of the latter had grown fuzzy with time, but the mixer had been held every year since the late 1940s. Now a fund-raiser for the Community League, the event generated revenue for a variety of local charities. Prominent citizens and city leaders—the chief of police among them—couldn’t even consider missing the mixer, and of course Lindsey attended to cover the evening for the newspaper.
Usually she looked forward to the gathering. This year she was tempted to call in sick.
She didn’t, of course. She dressed in one of her new outfits—a form-fitting emerald-green dress with spaghetti straps and a floating asymmetrical hemline. Paired with backless heels, the dress gave an illusion of height that she liked. She needed that little ego boost tonight.
Fluffing her coppery hair around her carefully made-up face, she decided she was as ready as she was going to be. Unfortunately, it was a cold, damp night, making a coat necessary. The closest thing she owned to a dress coat was a lined gray raincoat. Since her only other choices were the leather jacket she wore most days or a puffy parka reserved for really cold weather, she chose the raincoat. She would shed it quickly when she arrived, she decided. Maybe she would shop the after-season sales for a nice coat for next winter—wherever she happened to be by then, she thought with a sigh.
She was slipping out of the raincoat even as she stepped into the brightly lit and colorfully decorated community center. Rows of coat racks served as an informal cloak room. She hung her coat on an empty hook, leaving nothing of value in the pockets, since there would be no attendant. She smiled at the two women sitting at a table strategically placed across the hallway to block the entrance into the ballroom. “You two got ticket duty tonight, hmm?”
“Only for the first hour,” Marjorie Schaffer replied with a smile for her friend Virginia Porter. “We’re taking shifts.”
“Good idea. I’m sure you have impatient dance partners waiting inside.”
Both widowed and in their early sixties, the older women laughed, blushed a little, then took Lindsey’s ticket and urged her to go on in.
Because Lindsey had stalled so long getting ready as she’d tried to work up enthusiasm for the evening, the ballroom was already crowded when she walked in. She estimated that she knew by name at least 75 percent of the people there, and it seemed as though they all tried to greet her at once.
Compliments flew, along with quick barely touching hugs and smacking-air kisses. “You look fabulous!” “Love your hair, dress, earrings, shoes.” “Have you been working out?” Though large, fancy parties weren’t her first choice of entertainment options, Lindsey considered herself pretty good at dealing with them. She could schmooze and mingle like a skilled socialite when necessary.
The same couldn’t be said for all her friends. Though Serena and Cameron looked perfectly at ease, Riley seemed to be in danger of falling asleep at any moment. And Dan, when she spotted him, might as well have been one of the security guards who’d been hired for the evening. His faintly vigilant posture, the politely professional expression on his face, his conservatively cut dark suit—all marked him as a man who was here as part of his job, not because he particularly enjoyed such gatherings.
When he saw her, Riley rather abruptly disengaged himself from the two giggly teenagers who’d been testing their flirting skills on the good-looking, unconventional reporter. With his characteristic rolling saunter, he made his way easily through the crowd, coming to a stop in front of Lindsey. Hands on his lean hips, he gave her a slow once-over. “Damn,” he drawled. “You look good.”
She giggled like one of the teenagers. “Thanks. Did someone forget to tell you this is a dressy occasion?”
Lifting an eyebrow, he looked down at his own outfit, which consisted of a blue-and-cream checked-cotton shirt, worn unbuttoned over a cream-colored T-shirt and khakis. “What do you mean?” Riley asked with feigned innocence. “I’m even wearing socks.”
“Oh, so you are. For you, that counts as formal wear, doesn’t it?”
He extended an arm to her. “Dance with me. It will keep me from falling into a coma.”
“Not the most flattering offer I’ve had in a while,” she chided, laying her fingers on his surprisingly muscular forearm. “Are you asking me to dance only because you’re so bored?”
Fully aware that she wasn’t really offended, he chuckled as he escorted her to the dance f
loor, where a good number of other couples swayed to recorded dance music. A new number was just beginning, and Riley turned Lindsey into his arms, comfortably taking the lead. Riley had always been a good dancer. She allowed herself to relax and enjoy.
“So what’s with the new look you’ve been showing off the last couple of weeks?” Riley asked, proving once again that very little escaped him despite his carefully cultivated air of lazy unconcern.
She shrugged one almost-bare shoulder. “I just decided it was time to start looking like a grown-up.”
He made a face. “Why would you want to do that? You’re not even thirty yet.”
Lindsey smiled up at him. “Who said you have to be thirty to be grown-up? You’re thirty and I wouldn’t exactly call you a model of maturity.”
“Oh, gee, thanks. So why’d you suddenly decide it was time for your metamorphosis?”
“Just ready for a change, I guess. In a lot of ways.”
“I’ve heard rumors that you’re thinking about selling your house. Maybe moving away.”
Even though she’d mentioned the possibility to only a few people, she wasn’t surprised Riley had heard. Word traveled fast in Edstown, and Riley had a way of staying abreast of the latest gossip—though he would have heatedly denied being in the least interested, of course. “It’s a possibility.”
“Thinking about jumping back into the fast lane, hmm?”
“I just need changes,” she repeated. “Don’t you ever get…restless? Itchy?”
“Itchy?” His grin turned wicked. “Sounds to me like what you need is a sex life.”
“I just need a life,” she retorted flatly. “Of any kind.”
“Well, as happy as I would be to offer my services in certain areas, I know you too well. You’re the kind who gets involved with a guy and you start thinking permanence. Commitment.” He gave a dramatic shudder before adding, “Kids.”
He was right, of course. Lindsey was the traditional type at heart. Marriage and children had always been in her plans. Unfortunately, her long-time obsession with a man who gave little indication of returning her interest had kept her from looking seriously in other directions. It was probably time for that to change, too.