Keeping Company (22 page)

In fact, it had looked more like regret than anything, he thought, a fist of tension twisting in his gut. What was she thinking? That she wished she had gotten to show off the dress more at the
dance? That she would still be there networking with her colleagues, making the proper impression on all the right people, if he hadn’t screwed things up and offended everyone within earshot? That she would rather be in the ballroom making points with her peers than in this bedroom making love with the owner of a bar and bait shop?

“Can’t that wait?” he asked as he watched her open the louvered door of the closet and rummage through for a decent hanger.

Alaina gave a shrug. “Sorry, darling, but it’s like my mother always said: Men come and men go, but a Bill Blass original is timeless. One must treat it with proper respect.”

Men come and men go.
Dylan frowned and pulled the sheet up a little tighter around his waist. “Sorry you didn’t have the chance to show it off more tonight.”

“There’ll be other occasions—provided you didn’t get my name scratched off the A-list for all eternity.”

Other occasions, Dylan mused. How many occasions could there be for a small-town attorney to
put on a designer gown? Bill Blass didn’t get a lot of wear around Anastasia.

You’ll be bored to distraction inside six months.
All he had to do was close his eyes and he could see Skip Whittaker reciting those words. He could see Alaina glowing beneath the light of crystal chandeliers and hear her sharp-tongued repartee. And he remembered what he’d thought when he’d first met her: that she had come to Anastasia for a change of scenery. There had been no question in his mind that she wouldn’t stay. Hell, that was why he had proposed this confounded deal to begin with!

He had tricked himself into believing he could simply keep company with Alaina Montgomery, enjoying her obvious charms without losing his heart. Now his heart was lost and all Alaina seemed to be able to do was remind him their situation wasn’t permanent. It was just a deal, a convenience with some great sex thrown in. Six-figure incomes and Bill Blass gowns were her world, not fishing boats and bartenders and schedules that revolved around children.

A cold wave of fear left his skin pebbled with goose bumps. What had he been thinking about,
falling in love with Alaina Montgomery? It wasn’t only his own heart at stake. He had involved Cori and Sam as well. They had been growing fond of Alaina. What was going to happen to them when she got bored with Anastasia and went back to the bright lights and excitement of the city and big-time law? What would happen when she left them—just as Veronica had?

The old wound opened as if it had simply scarred over but never really healed. He’d never been so frightened in his life.

He stared at Alaina. Alaina stared back. Neither realized the sudden wariness they saw on the other’s face was just a reflection of their own expressions. Raw nerves hummed in the still night air. Tender feelings that each had buried lay open and vulnerable, and hearts that longed for love but feared rejection ached half a room apart. And overhead, clouds rolled in to obscure the moon, and the rainbow that had poured down from the skylight vanished into darkness.

It was the beginning of the end. She could feel it. In a dozen subtle little ways Alaina could feel Dylan pulling back from her. The days of their deal were numbered.

She sat at her newly refinished desk—the desk Dylan had helped her find—mentally going over the checklist of danger signals as she pretended to listen to her client. Her stomach churned as she called to mind all the little digs against her lifestyle and her career he had shot at her in the three days since their trip to San Francisco. Not that he hadn’t done that from day one, but there was a difference in his tone these days. There was
a definite chill in the air that had little to do with the approach of winter.

To make matters worse, her natural reaction was to fight back. If he picked on her car, she retaliated with remarks about his truck. When he sniped at her preference for designer labels, she lambasted his liking for dilapidated denim and shirts that would make Hawaiians cringe.

They were caught in a horrible downward spiral that was pushing them apart until they seemed like strangers with nothing in common except sexual preferences.

It had all started with that damned dinner dance. Why had she gotten so head up about going dancing with him? Was she developing some kind of fatalistic Ginger Rogers fixation or what? She should have known Dylan would hate anything as vainglorious as a Bar Association social function. Everything about it would rub him the wrong way—including her role. Somewhere between the hors d’oeuvres and the adieus he had come to a decision about her. He didn’t want her.

Oh, he’d been able to put up with her short-term, but over the long haul Dylan Harrison
didn’t want a woman who looked stunning in a Bill Blass gown. He wanted a woman who looked good wearing an apron with cookie dough smeared on it. He wanted a woman who didn’t turn green at the mere mention of a boat—ship. Hell, what difference did it make what it was called? It was becoming plain that she wouldn’t need to know.

And what about the beautiful love they’d made on the borrowed houseboat? A fond farewell, perhaps. A last good tumble. A memory gilded in the colors of a rainbow.

There was one more date left on the list of events they had agreed to attend together: Dylan’s family reunion. After Sunday their contract would be up for renewal, but Alaina had the sinking feeling Dylan wasn’t going to pick up the option.

She swallowed at the fist-sized lump that was stuck in her throat. A fine flame of anger burned off the haze of melancholy. Why the hell had she gone and fallen in love with that bar-and-bait-shop buffoon anyway? Hadn’t she made up her mind she was better off without love, without a
man? She’d seen it happen time and again: Men did nothing but complicate a woman’s life.

“He’s a royal pain in the patootie,” a little voice chirped.

“You’ve got that right,” Alaina grumbled.

“Gee, sweetie,” said the blue-haired little old lady seated before the desk. “It’s one thing for me to say so. I’m his granny, after all. I’m the one he’s barfed on at every major occasion of his life. It’s like his genes were programmed by that mother of his. She probably played subliminal messages to him when he was in her womb.”

Alaina’s brows drew together, and she sat up straighter in her chair as her brain tried to push through the cotton-wool fog of distraction. “Dylan threw up on you?”

“Dylan who?”

“Who? Oh, please,” Alaina said with a groan. She rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Don’t let’s start with the Abbott and Costello thing again. I’m really not up to it.”

“Her biorhythms are all out of whack, Mrs. Bostwick,” Marlene said, barging into the office. She wore purple leggings and yards and yards of
brilliant pink gauze sewn into a garment that looked as if it could have served double duty as a tunic or a circus tent. “Maybe you should come back in a day or two to discuss your grandson’s trust fund.”

Alaina scowled at her secretary, a Doberman-like snarl rumbling behind her barred teeth. “Marlene …”

Mrs. Bostwick turned in her chair. “You think she’ll be better by then?”

Marlene waved a hand glowing with mood rings. “No sweat. Venus will be in Virgo. She’ll be in a mental upswing.”

“I hope so,” Mrs. Bostwick said, pushing her tiny frame up out of the visitor’s chair, “because right now I’d have to say she’s a bubbleheaded bimbo.”

Alaina’s spine straightened at the insult. “I beg your pardon?”

“Come back on Monday,” Marlene instructed, not sparing her boss so much as a glance. “You’ll thank me for it, Hilda.”

Steaming with indignation, Alaina watched
her secretary usher the potential client out of her office.

“Marlene, have you ever contemplated what it might be like to stand in the unemployment line?” she asked as Marlene pulled the door shut.

“Nope. Have you ever contemplated what it might be like to live in San Francisco? Because there’s some anemic-looking guy in the outer office who claims you’re going to be moving there. My guess is he’s a Gemini. I wouldn’t trust him any farther than I could spit.”

“What?” Alaina crossed the office to peek out the door. Skip Whittaker stood in the center of the reception area, looking around as if he smelled something nasty but was afraid to go looking for the source. She shut the door and stared hard at Marlene. “What did he tell you?”

“He says you’re going to blow this podunk town and go back to practicing
real
law. He says you’re way too hungry to settle for crumbs when you could be getting a big slice of the financial pie.”

Alaina arched a brow. Her voice was cold enough to inflict frostbite. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah. And he doesn’t like the wallpaper in the foyer either.”

Anger sizzled through Alaina. Real law. As if taking care of the legal needs of the people of Anastasia wasn’t worth opening her Louis Vuitton briefcase for. As if the only kind of law that mattered was going for the jugular in a case that meant megabucks and newspaper headlines. Well, that kind of law might have been fine for Horton “Skip” Whittaker III, but she’d had her fill of it.

Marlene chuckled at the arctic-ice gleam in her boss’s eyes. “I knew it. The guy’s got the aura of a clam.”

A malicious smile curved up the corner of Alaina’s mouth at the thought of Skip’s having Marlene read his aura. His skin was probably still crawling. “Give me a minute, then show Mr. Whittaker in, would you, Marlene?”

“Do I get to watch you shred him to a bloody pulp with your rapier tongue?”

Alaina gave her a look.

Marlene shrugged. “Never hurts to ask.”

When Skip sauntered in a moment later, Alaina was cool and composed. Her hair was
combed neatly into its fifty-dollar style. Her black-rimmed glasses were perched on her nose. The padded shoulders of her tan Nicole Farhi suit jacket were squared back against her executive chair. She wore a cold smile and an extra spritz of killer French perfume. Adrenaline surged through her at the sight of her old schoolmate. A confrontation like this was precisely what she needed to snap out of her ennui, she decided.

Marlene tucked a smug grin into one corner of her fleshy face. “Buzz me when the dust settles, boss.”

Skip frowned and sidled away, his hands toying nervously with the sweater sleeves tied around his neck. Alaina decided he looked like something out of a prep school fashion manual—properly pressed khaki slacks, a white polo shirt with the appropriate reptile embroidered on it, and a bilious-green cable-knit sweater draped over his shoulders. She instantly decided she preferred a man in rumpled chinos and a Bar and Bait Shop T-shirt, but that was beside the point.

“Really, Alaina,” Skip drawled, his lip curling in affront. “That secretary of yours is some kind of
lunatic. She tried to put her hands on my person! And there are people living in bus depots who dress better. Why do you put up with her?”

“She’s my aunt,” Alaina said without hesitation, her malicious grin growing as a blush seeped into Skip’s pale cheeks. She lit a cigarette and watched him squirm while she stared at him and exhaled smoke. “Let’s cut to the chase, Skippy. What brings you to my podunk little town?”

“See, Cleve, I told you that toy company would be a good investment.” Dylan tapped a forefinger to the figures glowing on his computer screen. “Their new line of computer games is going to be the hit of the Christmas season.”

The big fisherman scratched at his whiskers as he leaned over the polished surface of the bar. “By golly, Dylan, you were right. I owe you. Let me buy you a Kool-Aid.”

“Deal.”

Stretching cramped shoulder muscles, Dylan pushed away from the terminal and stood up. He pulled off his reading glasses and set them aside as
he poured himself a glass of the cherry-red drink he kept on hand for when the kids dropped in to visit him at work.

It was a typical fall afternoon at the bar. A steady stream of locals and tourists kept the waitresses pleasantly busy. The door to the bait shop was opening and closing with profitable regularity as well. All was right with the world.

Then why did he feel so lousy?

A pair of exotic, arctic-blue eyes came immediately to mind. Alaina. Nothing had been the same between them since the trip to San Francisco. She was going to call it quits. He could feel it in his bones. One more item on the agenda of their contract, and he would have no more claim on her time—except for the fact that he was in love with her. All the scowling and snarling he’d done about that in the past few days hadn’t changed the fact of the matter. Like it or not, he was in love with Alaina Montgomery, consummate yuppie, and he was damned sick of mooning around about it, longing for the best and fearing the worst.

He wanted more from her. The word
marriage
made him queasy, but that was the direction his
heart was headed. He knew the rest of him and all of Alaina had a ways to go before they could broach the subject, but they had to start somewhere. Not breaking up seemed like a logical jumping-off point. The trouble was they had been skidding downhill ever since his foot-in-the-mouth performance at the dinner dance. He’d had no success in trying to show Alaina the error of her yuppie ways. In fact, she’d dug her Gucci pumps in even harder. According to Marlene, she was contemplating trading her Beemer in on a Mercedes, and she was going to have the office redone in a Southwestern motif.