James, Stephanie (6 page)

she took the seat beside him. “Are you going to feel up to having dinner in the main dining room?”

“I’m feeling better by the minute. And thanks to all the food you’ve been stuffing down me today, I think

my energy level will be high enough to manage the exertion of dinner,” he said, chuckling and leaning

back against his folded arms.

“Oh good. Well, I was wondering about perhaps seeing the purser and getting your seat assignment

changed. There’s an empty place at my table and as long as you’re not traveling with anyone else…?”

She tried not to chew on her lower lip as she waited for his reaction. He had been so amenable to every

other suggestion she’d made today that when this idea had come to her in the pool, she had decided to

risk the potential rejection.

“I’d like that, Tabby,” he murmured, closing his eyes against the glare of the sun. “I’d like that very

much.”

Tabitha’s smile was very private this time as she leaned back to let the heat of the day finish drying her

body. Her self-confidence soared. Dev wanted to have dinner with her. She was suddenly enormously

glad she’d taken the initiative. Perhaps he’d been wondering how to do it, himself, but hadn’t wanted to

seem too demanding of her time. Dev Colter wasn’t the kind of man who would want to push himself into

a woman’s company unless he was sure she wanted him to do so, she thought smugly.

That smug feeling was still with her as she entered the dining room on Dev’s arm that evening. Dressed in

a gauzy, free-floating, white dress trimmed in turquoise at the hem and throat, she felt light and delicate

beside his solid strength. He was wearing a dark, linen sports jacket over tan trousers, and the ebony

cane in his hand seemed to lend an air of dignified restraint to the total picture of lean, conservative

masculinity. Best of all he acted as if she were the only woman in the whole room.

“You look very charming tonight, Tabby,” he murmured as they took their seats. “I only wish I could ask

you to go dancing later on.”

She glanced up in surprise and confusion. “Oh, will you be too tired, do you think?” she asked weakly.

She had been hoping the evening would extend well beyond the dinner hour. The tinge of disappointment

was almost painful.

He gave her an odd glance as he picked up his menu. “Not too tired. But I’m afraid I don’t dance.” His

silver glance slid sideways to the cane hooked on the back of his chair.

Relief flooded through her. “Good grief, is that all you’re worried about?”

“Well, it does rather limit my capabilities on the dance floor,” he drawled a bit coolly.

“So who wants to dance? I’m not really a very good dancer anyway. We’ll sit at one of the little tables

and drink gin and tonics and make brilliantly perceptive observations about all the other people on the

dance floor.” She chuckled.

Dev studied her for a moment. He seemed about to ask a question but shelved it as the others who had

been assigned to their table began to arrive. The conversation quickly became general. The two other

couples, both in their mid-fifties, had heard of the affair on St. Regis and were full of interested concern

as they discovered themselves seated next to the victim. Somewhat to Tabitha’s surprise, Dev seemed

quite willing to talk about it although he chose to emphasize her own part in the matter.

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“Believe me, I was never so glad to see anyone in my life as I was Miss Graham here when she came

around the corner,” he announced feelingly.

“Not quite true,” Tabitha heard herself retort. “You said that if I were the U.S. cavalry, I was a bit late,

as I recall!” She turned to the others, astonishing herself with her willingness to make a joke of the whole

thing. “It was one complaint after another, you know. First that I was late and then that I wouldn’t let him

pour an entire bottle of rum down his throat in the taxi on the way to the boat and later, when he asked

for a bowl of soup, that I showed up with a full-course meal. There’s no pleasing some men!”

Dev contrived to look hurt. “Well, I really could have used the rest of that bottle of rum the taxi driver

offered!”

One of the other men at the table laughed loudly. “I don’t blame you, Colter. Sounds like good medicine

to me!” He picked up his whiskey sour and swallowed thirstily.

It wasn’t until Dev had escorted Tabitha to a seat in the elegant cocktail lounge after dinner that he

asked the question she had seen in his eyes just before the meal.

“Why don’t you dance?” he inquired blandly as he ordered drinks.

Tabitha lifted one shoulder dismissingly. “Not enough practice, I suppose. It takes a fair amount of

experience to feel confident on the floor, you know.”

His mouth twisted. “To tell you the truth I wasn’t much good even before my accident. Now the cane

gives me the perfect excuse to stay safely seated.”

“Your accident?” she began delicately, aware of an avid curiosity.

“Umm.” He nodded unhelpfully and then, instead of responding to her unasked question, he went on

with another of his own. “So why haven’t you acquired much practice, Tabby? Don’t they date in that

little Victorian village where you have your bookshop?”

She smiled. “Definitely. We’re not
that
antiquated. But since my marriage ended, I haven’t gotten out a

great deal.” She bit her lip. “Actually, I didn’t get out a great deal before my marriage. Or during it, to be

perfectly precise.”

He gave her an odd glance. “When were you married?”

“A couple of years ago. It didn’t last long, I’m afraid. Only about a year.”

“What happened?” Dev asked.

“I guess you could say it was cancelled due to lack of interest,” she tried to retort brightly, but a flash of

remembered humiliation came and went briefly in her eyes.

“Which of you lost interest in the other?”

She eyed him with the first, faint trace of wariness she had yet experienced around him. “Are you sure

you want to discuss this particular subject?”

He smiled with a reassuring gentleness that immediately relaxed her. “It’s probably a case of failure

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loving company. My ex-wife lost interest in me right after my accident.”

“Oh!” Tabitha exclaimed, her heart going out to him at once at hearing the bold statement. “I didn’t

realize… Well, I know exactly how you feel. It’s rather demoralizing, to say the least, isn’t it?”

“When your mate loses interest? To say the least,” he agreed dryly. Then he went on with warm

assurance. “I can’t see anyone losing interest in you, though, Tabby.”

Her smile flickered brilliantly at the compliment and then faded into a self-mocking grimace. “Actually,

the surprise was that Greg married me in the first place. I was the kind of girl who made a fortune

babysitting in high school because I never had a date. In college I was the sort who always got her term

papers done early, because I had plenty of free evenings to study. Later I made a success of my little

bookshop, because I had plenty of time to devote to it. When Greg came along, I was as astonished as

everyone else was when he asked me to marry him! I hadn’t exactly been besieged with offers.”

“What happened, Tabby?” The silver eyes pinned her intently.

She shrugged. “What I didn’t understand at the time and what he didn’t bother to tell me was that he

had moved into town in an effort to recover from a blazing love affair which had gone wrong. I guess I

seemed like a quiet, undemanding sort of female who didn’t remind him in the least of his lost love. It was

a classic case of marrying on the rebound and it proved a disaster. I knew almost immediately that I was

never going to be able to satisfy him, and when I found out he was always comparing me with the great

love of his life, I realized it was all pretty hopeless. He realized it, too. And then his dream woman came

back into his life. That resolved the situation rather quickly. Greg and I were divorced almost at once.”

“And he went back to his blazing love affair?”

“Yes. It was all for the best. But the experience didn’t improve my ability on the dance floor,” she

concluded in an attempt at flippancy. Then, very bravely, she asked, “What about you, Dev? Did your

wife really leave you because of your accident?” Her eyes were dark with sympathy.

He shrugged, glancing down at his drink, and then raised his gaze once more to her concerned face.

“The marriage had been disintegrating long before the accident. I hadn’t proved to be what she wanted in

a husband. I suppose my lifestyle sounded more exciting to her than it really is. Or perhaps I sounded

more exciting to her than I really am,” he confided dryly. “People sometimes think that if you’re well

traveled, you’re a jet-setter type. And I’m not, to put it mildly. I’m just a hard-working businessman. It

took me quite a while to recover from my accident, and by the time I had, we had decided to go our

separate ways. She found someone else before the divorce was finalized.”

“We seem to have several things in common,” Tabitha observed softly.

He looked at her and then he smiled. “We do, don’t we?” There was another short silence and then he

added in an even quieter tone, “You don’t bore me in the slightest, Tabby.”

“That’s the nice thing about a shipboard romance, isn’t it?” she said without stopping to think. “By the

time boredom sets in, the boat is back in port and everyone can go his or her own way.” Almost instantly

she wished her tongue would dissolve in her mouth. Lord! Now he was going to think she was suggesting

that he have a shipboard affair with her! And she hadn’t meant that at all. Had she?

But Dev appeared not to have picked up on the awful ramifications of her words. Instead he only smiled

benignly and glanced around at the dancers who were beginning to crowd the floor. “How many of these

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people do you suppose are only involved in shipboard romances?” he asked easily. “I’ll take the first

guess. I’ll bet that couple over there in the far corner is having an affair.”

Grateful for the diversion, she played the game with him. “How can you tell?”

“Look at the way they’re all wrapped up in each other.”

“Maybe they’re newlyweds.”

“No rings.”

“Hmm. You’re very observant,” she said, rather surprised he had been able to pick up such a small

detail from such a distance across a dark room.

“I have good eyes.” He shrugged, as if it were an unimportant fact about himself he had long since taken

for granted. “Good ears, too.”

“Better than normal?” she asked, firmly resisting the impulse to make a Little-Red-Riding-Hood-style

comment. He had clearly intended no humor in the remarks.

“So I’ve been told,” he confirmed idly. “Your turn.”

“Okay, I’ll choose that couple near the bar. I’ll bet they’re involved in an affair, too.”

“Nah. They’re married.”

Tabitha frowned. “Rings?”

“Yeah, but that’s not what gives them away. Look how he keeps glancing over his wife’s shoulder at the

blonde by the window. He’s flirting like hell.”

“You sound very knowledgeable,” she accused.

“I’m a man. I understand my own sex,” Dev growled.

“And married men always flirt?”

“That one does. Let’s see, who else can we find?”

“This could make an interesting parlor game,” Tabitha murmured, getting into the spirit of the thing.

Two hours slipped past and Tabitha realized she was enjoying herself with unaccustomed abandon. She

even allowed herself more than her usual two drinks and was beginning to feel quite bubbly. It was

probably the alcohol in part, but she knew that she was high on something besides the unaccustomed

number of drinks. She was enthralled with the relationship that was blossoming between Dev Colter and

herself.

“You look very happy,” he observed as they ambled out on deck to drink in some of the moonlight and

the sea air. Actually it was Tabitha who ambled. Dev still moved with a great deal of stiffness. Even when

he was healed, he would be less than agile with that left leg of his, Tabitha thought compassionately. He

would still be vulnerable. Her expression softened dreamily at the thought.

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“I am,” she said simply. “I’ve had a lovely evening.” An unfamiliar self-confidence was welling up in her

as she leaned against the rail and clung lightly to his arm. “I can only think of one more thing that would

make it perfect.” For a second her heart almost stopped as the words left her mouth. Surely this wasn’t

Tabitha Graham talking?

Dev looked down at her, his hard face shadowed in the moonlight. Only his silver eyes seemed light and

reflective. “What’s that, Tabby?”

She took a deep breath and then, with a fragile sureness which was entirely new to her, she lifted her

face and raised her hands to splay against the front of his jacket.

“Would you mind very much if I kissed you good night?” she asked politely.

Three

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“It’s all right, she murmured with a reassuring smile when he said nothing in response to her inquiry. “I’m