Femininity came late for Robbie. She was never Roberta, and most often just Rob. Without a mother’s influence, her teens were rather painful and self-conscious, and she made a crusade out of ignoring boys and the girls who primped and preened for their attention. Jason was more important to her than she would have admitted to anyone. To Jason, she was just herself. He didn’t give a hoot if she had dirt on her nose, scratches on her legs, or grass in her hair. Granted, he never commented on the rare occasions when she dressed up either, but that was what she had liked about him. He went away to school when she was sixteen, and only then did she begin to concentrate on learning how to look attractive to the opposite sex. Time trickled by.
That was the problem, she reflected broodingly. Time always seemed to be just slipping by, and she wasn’t doing anything about it. She was just letting herself grow older.
She shook herself free of her introspection and checked her bedside alarm clock to find that she should have begun dressing some time ago. With a moan, she flew into action and scrabbled for her new light green summer dress, with the tailored waist and slim skirt. That, along with a severely cut white jacket in case the evening cooled later on, and white, slim-heeled sandals was her outfit. She let her straight brown hair swing free and simple and emphasized the largeness of her dark eyes with smoky shadow and mascara. That, along with blusher on her cheekbones and lip color on her full lips, completed her toilette, and she hurried downstairs as it was nearly six.
Her face being characterized by a pert nose and strongly defined, sleek brows made her more interesting and attractive rather than simply beautiful, and she had tailored her wardrobe to suit her lanky looks, going for sleek, streamlined styles and severe cuts that emphasized her figure best. As a result she was rather striking, and no one was to know that she secretly deplored the fact that she couldn’t wear the froth and frills that some women could.
Now that she was actually upon this evening, having spent the afternoon in a somewhat glum reminiscence, she was looking forward to her date. She had to grimace briefly for she knew that Jason wouldn’t approve of the man she was seeing, and that had been the reason why she had been so reticent. Not that his opinion mattered all that much to her. Oh no, it was just that she knew Ian Walsh wasn’t the kind of man that Jason would have liked her to associate with. Jason was simply going to have to realize that she now made character judgments and life decisions on her own.
She had teased Jason about being the free, swinging bachelor type because she knew he didn’t like it. And, she had to admit, Ian probably fitted that description as well as any man. But he was so amusing, so interesting and lively and attentive, so damned good-looking that she couldn’t resist going out with him. She liked him. He was dark, powerfully built, and in his early thirties, with a lovely, wicked smile that could charm honey away from killer bees. He also travelled a lot with his job, but he never failed to call her whenever he was in town, and she had been seeing him for a few months now. Her mood shifted even further, and she became quite cheerful. Tonight Ian was taking her out to eat, and as his taste was always impeccable, she knew that she could relax and look forward to the meal with enjoyment. Being a waitress herself, she appreciated being waited on. She had met Ian at work. He had dined at one of her tables one fine spring evening, and soon he seemed to be coming in every week. It was some time before the hostess told her that he had been requesting her station specifically. Close on the heels of that revelation, he had asked her out, and that was how she had started seeing him.
She went into the kitchen to see if her father had started any supper for himself and found spaghetti sauce bubbling away on the stove, so she stirred it. Then she hurried along the hall to the living room, hoping Ian hadn’t arrived yet and was waiting for her.
Ian hadn’t, but keeping her father company, while lounging comfortably on the sofa, was Jason, looking rather alien in clothes slightly more formal than the jeans and cut-offs in which she was used to seeing him. She stopped in surprise at seeing him and then advanced slowly into the room.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, not particularly worried about tact.
The twist of his well-cut lips showed that he was aware of it, but as he let his eyes travel in leisurely appreciation of her figure, he answered her in all seriousness. “I’m keeping your father company for supper tonight.”
“Oh.” A moment while she digested this, shifting uneasily under his all too obvious stare, and then she looked to Herb Fisher, who was at his ease in his favorite armchair. “Hi, Dad. How was the golf course?”
“Too damned crowded,” he grunted, and gave her a lopsided grin. “But I was three under par, which made up for it.”
She gave a low whistle, while dropping her handbag to a nearby table. “I’ll say. Congratulations. I bet Jim Dennison was green with envy.”
Her father chuckled his satisfaction. “He wasn’t speaking much as we left the course, so I couldn’t say.”
She laughed, and went over to the front window to check the driveway. As she let the curtain fall back into place, Jason said silkily, “I can’t wait to meet your date. He will come to the door, won’t he?” His tone implied that he believed the worst.
She eyed him with disfavor. “I was considering running out before he could,” she retorted, which made him grin, light gray yes dancing merrily.
Their driveway was concrete all the way to the road, with no gravel to herald the arrival of a car. All she heard was a low purr just before the car’s engine was turned off, and before she could go out to meet Ian, he was getting out of the car and coming towards the house. Jason rose smoothly to his feet and beat her to the door, pure devilment sparkling in his eyes at her exasperation.
He opened the door and said cordially, “Hello, won’t you come in? You’re Rob’s date, I believe?”
Robbie stood back, smiling slightly as Ian looked at her from under his straight black brows and then back to Jason to smile coolly. “Yes,” he agreed, his voice cultured and smoothly polite. “I am.” He turned to Herb. “Hello, Mr. Fisher, how are you? You’re looking good.”
“Thank you, sir,” said her father, lazily from his chair. “I’m feeling good.”
Ian turned back to her and smiled, slow and sweet, into her eyes. She let her eyes twinkle back at him, while Jason stood back and observed them both dispassionately. “Are you ready?” asked Ian, and she nodded, reaching for her bag.
“No need to leave, yet,” said Jason easily, and she could have turned around to kick him. Out of her sight, her father just settled back and looked on, as peaceful as a baby. “Stay and have a drink.”
Ian let his eyebrows rise slightly as he looked to her for confirmation. She said firmly, “I’m ready to go.”
“Then we’ll be passing on that drink tonight,” said Ian to Jason, smiling wickedly. “Good evening, gentlemen.”
As he held back to let her precede him, she couldn’t resist throwing a glare at Jason for his behavior, but she could have predicted the result. He raised his brows in bland, mocking reply behind Ian’s left shoulder and let her glare bounce off him.
In the car, as Ian pulled out of the driveway, he said casually, “By the way, who was that? Have I met him?”
She looked out of the passenger window so that he couldn’t see her face. “No,” she replied with a sigh. “You haven’t. He’s our neighbor. I grew up with him.”
She could sense the appraising look he threw at her, along with the slightly amused smile that played on his refined lips. “Odd fellow,” he said laconically.
“He’s set himself up as my big brother for about ten years, now,” she told him, somewhat unfairly, and couldn’t help but smile then. “Please don’t take offence.”
At that, he laughed. “Oh, no. I would never do that. Your big brother, eh? How interesting.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” he said cheerfully. “Absolutely nothing.” Then, with another of his lovely smiles,
“I hope you’re hungry tonight. I find that I’m quite starved.”
She enjoyed the evening. Ian was his usual charming, attentive self. She laughed and said all the right things, and appreciated the good food and service. Maybe, she mused into her wineglass, maybe this was what was lacking in her life, an exciting, romantic man who stimulated her senses and pleasantly thrilled her with his attention.
The evening was balmy and clear, though windy enough for her to be thankful that she had thought to bring her white jacket. The stars were visible in abundance, and the trip back was made with low, soothing music played over Ian’s excellent car stereo. She allowed her head to loll back on the seat and her mind to roam dreamily. He pulled into her driveway, turned off the engine, and tilted his dark head towards her with a gentler version of that wicked smile. He reached out and took her hand, playing with her fingers. “Thank you,” he said, and she looked startled, then laughed.
“Good heavens, Ian, that’s supposed to be my line!”
“That may be, madam, but I enjoyed your company, so I thank you for it,” he retorted. She smiled back at him through the duskiness, feeling a bit uneasy for some odd reason. She waited patiently for the moment when she could draw her hand away without hurting his feelings or appearing rude. “I want to see you next week,” Ian continued softly.
“That would be nice,” she replied as quietly. Why, for heaven’s sake, was she feeling so self-conscious and uncomfortable? They had lingered like this many times before. She ran her gaze over the darkness of the house, knowing her father would have gone to bed long before.
“I’m going to be out of town for a while, but I’ll give you a call when I get back, all right?”
“That sounds good,” she murmured, only half her attention on him.
Suddenly she knew why she felt uncomfortable. The lights in the front room at the Morrows’ house were on, and apparently Jason was up late. She felt stupid at being bothered by that, but she was.
Ian drew near, bending his head slowly. He pressed his lips to hers gently, time and time again, tantalizingly brushing her mouth, one hand going to her long, slim neck to stroke lightly. She tried very hard to feel natural. Certainly she had responded normally, with pleasure, in the past. But her heart wasn’t in it. It didn’t feel right. She felt stilted and awkwardly shy.
Somehow she made it through decently enough and said her good nights. Soon she was locking the front door behind her and leaning against it with an explosive sigh. She felt like an idiot and fervently hoped that Ian couldn’t tell that anything was wrong. She liked him too much and she wanted him to call back.
She thrust away from the front door and paced through the darkened first floor of her home restlessly, berating herself about how stupidly she had acted over a mere coincidence. As she passed through the kitchen, which faced the Morrows’ house, she glanced out exasperatedly to the object of her frustration and stopped dead. She didn’t know why it bothered her to find that the living room light was off now and that the front of the house was quite dead. For a mere coincidence, it bothered her very much.
Chapter Two
The next morning, Robbie dragged herself out of bed reluctantly and dressed in ragged jean shorts that had been washed so many times they were nearly white, along with a brief, light blue tank top that showed a great deal of her slim, dark brown arms and shoulders. Then she went downstairs to the kitchen. The house was already quite warm, hinting of the summer heat yet to come that day. She opted for a glass of orange juice and a glass of iced tea instead of her usual cup of coffee. She was a habitual late riser, since her job entailed late nights. It was sometimes as late as two o’clock before she went to bed, and so her days started at around nine or ten.
After sitting at the breakfast table and reading the Sunday paper, she rose to halfheartedly clean a few of the downstairs rooms, and then when she had appeased her conscience for the day, she found the paperback she was currently reading and went outdoors.
This time, instead of settling in the sun, she arranged the lounge chair under the shade of a mature maple tree and composed herself on it to enjoy a leisurely reading session.
Herb went to church every Sunday, and Robbie was hard put to decide whether the attraction was purely religious or if it had anything to do with the lovely widow who attended regularly and in whom her father had shown an increasing interest lately. She had fallen out of the habit of attending church when she had started her job; more often than not, she worked on Saturday evenings and found that after eight to ten hours of sheer, hard physical work, it was too hard to drag herself out of bed after only five or six hours’ sleep.
Movement from the Morrows’ lawn drew her gaze, and she looked over to see Jason clipping energetically at the long row of hedge that lined the house. He was dressed as he had been the afternoon before, in faded cut-offs, which resembled hers, and nothing else, his bare, broad shoulders flexing sinuously in rhythm as he worked the shears.
Though it was quite hot, he was relentless, and after a time she couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as she imagined the trickles of sweat that must be slipping down his torso, along with the ache in his upper arms. Perhaps he wouldn’t feel it quite as much as she would, as he was obviously more powerful, but she put her book down anyway and ran lightly inside to pour him a glass of the iced tea she had made that morning. Then she strolled back outside and over to his lawn.
If he knew of her approach, he didn’t show it, whistling soundlessly, through his teeth as he worked. She watched him silently for a few moments, fascinated by the rippling display of sleek, well-honed muscle under the silken-smooth, dark skin. She couldn’t believe how he had managed to become such a marvelously well-endowed male without her having realized it.
She almost put her hand out to stroke at the lovely, powerful back. Catching herself with an obvious start, she cleared her throat and said to him, “Here, drink this before I have to watch you collapse with heat stroke.”
Jason spun around to face her, brows mildly raised. At the sight of the tall, frosted cold glass, his white teeth flashed quick and bright. “Why thank you, sweetheart,” he said lightly, and took the glass from her to empty in one long, thirst-satiating drink. His head was tilted back, light brown hair tangled and falling from his strong forehead, long throat muscles working. Robbie’s gaze slithered down his throat and then automatically went over the flat, broad expanse of his trim chest and waist. A very light sprinkling of silky hair salted that area, narrowing to a sleek arrow that plunged into his shorts, which were slung low on his slim hips.
Her glance skittered away, and she looked at his lean face and found him regarding her quizzically, questioningly, light eyes vivid. He cradled the glass in his long fingers and swished the ice cubes around. “How was your evening last night?” he asked.
She shrugged and shifted her feet restlessly. “It was fine,” she replied offhandedly. “We ate out and had a leisurely drive back. It wasn’t anything especially different, but it was quite nice.”
He nodded, and tilted his head sideways to squint up at the cloudless, brilliant sun-filled sky. With a great, heaving sigh, he raised one wrist to wipe his damp forehead and said, “I must be out of my mind to be doing this now.” As she agreed privately, he looked at her with a neat turn of his head, and commented very casually, “That Walsh fellow is a bit older than you.”
Robbie had rather expected something like that from him and she felt a flush of resentment rise to her face, much to her annoyance. “He’s in his thirties,” she said, the shortness of her tone a warning.
Jason grunted and threw her a look from under his level brows. Then he smiled unexpectedly. She felt taken aback, as it was particularly sweet. “He seems like a nice man, Rob. Thanks for the tea.”
He handed her the glass with something of a shove, as she murmured that he was welcome and not to mention it, her fingers colliding with his longer, hard ones before she managed to grasp hold of the round, slippery shape without d
ropping it. She stared at him blankly as he gave her a roguish wink and turned back to his work clipping away busily and whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world, which she supposed was the case. She regarded him for a moment or two, with a deep frown between her brows, and then she whirled away to stride back into the house to deposit the glass in the sink. Oddly enough, since she’d been expecting some kind of criticism from him about the obvious differences between Ian and herself, she actually felt let down.
It was a silly reaction to a silly subject. She shrugged jerkily and resolved to dismiss the whole thing from her mind. It appeared that Jason was learning that he had no say about whom she dated after all.
She had to work that evening, and after spending the afternoon reading in the shade, she went inside to shower and change into her work clothes. The uniform that the waitresses were supposed to wear was not strict; they had matching blouses which they could wear with any dark skirt of their choice, along with stylish yet comfortable shoes. Once at work, she would don a pretty yet serviceable apron, in which she could hold her tips, a handful of handy match books, and her pad and pen. Since today was Sunday, the restaurant closed two hours early, and so she could look forward to being home at a decent time tonight.
She searched for her father, kissed him good night, and then headed to the double garage to climb into her Volvo. A quickly depressed control button and a moment’s patient waiting had the door humming up silently behind her. Herb had insisted on automatic controls for the garage doors. That way, she needn’t step out of her car until she was safely inside, since the garage was connected to the small family room. Her father was a very heavy sleeper and never awakened when she arrived home late at night.
Robbie backed down the driveway, pausing only to make sure that the door slid down properly after her, before she glanced over to the Morrows’ house. Jason was trimming a large bush in the front garden, and she half-lifted her hand as if to wave at him, but he didn’t look her way. She let her hand drop to the wheel, then, and backed until she could pull around in the large circle of pavement which was the end of their cul-de-sac. She pulled away.
Waking Up Page 2