Keeping Company (19 page)

She would get through this. She’d survived four stepfathers, life with her mother, law school, and pelvic exams. She’d damn well survive an evening with the Harrisons.

*  *  *

“… and this is a scale model of Dr. Who’s
Tardis
,” Sam explained.

Alaina looked the piece over. It was a foot tall, painted royal blue and white with the words
POLICE BOX
in black above what appeared to be a door. She scratched her head and stared a little harder.

“It looks like a phone booth,” she commented at last, feeling like an idiot when Dylan’s son looked up at her impatiently.

“It
is
a phone booth.”

“Alaina isn’t very familiar with the Doctor,” Dylan said, steering Sam away from the shelves displaying the Dr. Who memorabilia.

The boy gave Alaina an incredulous look, then turned to his sister and rolled his eyes. Cori shrugged and turned her dark eyes up to Alaina with a look of mingled fading hope and disappointment.

“She’ll probably know more about the
Star Trek
stuff,” Dylan said hopefully.

They moved to yet another cubicle crammed with books and models. Gold, blue, and red uniform tunics hung on a display rack. The centerpiece of
the display was the
Enterprise
herself, a plastic spaceship that hung from the ceiling on fine threads of fishing line. The collection was impressive to say the least, and the least was about all Alaina could say since she knew absolutely nothing about science fiction.

Sam lifted a small black-and-gold rectangle that looked to Alaina like a TV remote control. “This is an authentic Federation phaser used in the first thirteen episodes of the show.”

“Really? What does it do?”

The boy stared at her in utter disbelief. “It’s a weapon used to kill or stun an enemy.”

Keeping her composure wrapped tightly around her like a cloak, Alaina arched a dark brow. “Fascinating.”

Dylan choked back a laugh, wrapping an arm around her shoulders as Cori and Sam wandered dejectedly away. “You sound just like Mr. Spock,” he said with a chuckle.

“Who’s Mr. Spock?”

“First officer and science officer of the
Enterprise
. A Vulcan. A very practical, logical, analytical sort of fellow. You’d love him.”

“Is he single? He sounds like my kind of guy.”

“Naw.” Dylan pulled her unyielding form against him and stole a kiss. Rubbing his nose against hers, he said, “Vulcans have sex only once every seven years. Somehow I can’t picture the lady I made love with this morning holding out that long.”

“No? Well”—she sniffed—“get on my bad side and see what happens.”

Dylan’s big hands wandered down over her bottom, squeezing her appreciatively. “Princess,” he murmured with a heartfelt groan, “you don’t have a bad side.”

Above them the doorbell sounded, followed by the thunder of little sneakers and shouts of “The pizza man’s here!”

Pizza, Alaina decided, was a great common denominator. Just about everyone liked pizza and held their own opinions as to what toppings and crusts were best. Being from Chicago, she had a natural preference for thick crust, which turned out to be Dylan’s favorite as well. Cori and Sam preferred thin crust, but they all agreed on pepperoni as the best topping.

The four of them crowded around the kitchen table eating the pizza directly out of the delivery box and drinking cherry Kool-Aid out of glasses with Peanuts characters on them. Cori had insisted Alaina take the glass with Lucy on it. Alaina had accepted, wondering whether it was a compliment or an insult. Dylan was given the glass with Pig-Pen on it, which seemed rather apropos considering the state of his house.

Once the ice was broken, conversation seemed to flow more easily with the children. Alaina felt herself relax by slow degrees. She listened attentively as Sam related the events of his day, going into a lengthy and complex explanation of his project for the science fair. Dylan had told her Sam was in a special program for gifted students, and she didn’t wonder why. It was clear even to someone unfamiliar with children that the boy was extremely bright and sophisticated for his age—so bright, in fact, that he decided Alaina probably wouldn’t understand the mathematical applications of his idea and changed the subject.

“That’s a genuine Crystal of Kalamari pin you have.” He started to point, then remembered his
manners and pulled his finger back into his fist in a gesture that reminded Alaina of Dylan’s reaction on first seeing her pin.

She sent the larger Harrison male a lazy smile. “So your dad tells me. It was a gift from a friend I went to school with.”

“Was he anything like the wizard Danathamien?” Sam asked.

“He’s probably more like the absentminded professor,” Alaina said, thinking of Bryan. She glanced at Cori, who stared up at the prism full of rainbows with wonder in her dark eyes.

“It’s pretty,” the little girl murmured, nibbling on her lower lip.

Alaina’s heart thumped. These were the first words Cori Harrison had spoken directly to her, and they were accompanied by a tiny shy smile. “You can touch it if you want to.”

Cori’s face lit up. She scrambled up from the seat of her chair, reaching toward Alaina, her eyes glued to her target so that she didn’t see the glass of Kool-Aid until it was too late. Everyone watched in horror as the glass seemed to tip in slow motion, cherry-red liquid gushing out of it in
a waterfall that splash-landed all over the lap of Alaina’s immaculate white slacks.

There was a long second of ominous silence, then a collective gasp from the people seated around the table. Little Cori, a horrified look on her pale face, burst into tears and bolted from the room. Sam sat back and watched Alaina warily. Dylan tipped his chair over as he jumped out of it to grab a dish towel off the kitchen counter.

Words of apology spilled out of his mouth at the same rate the Kool-Aid had spilled out of the glass as he bent over Alaina, dabbing ineffectually at the spreading red stain. “I’m really sorry. She’s at that age where she just walks into a room and things tip over. I’ll buy you a new pair of pants. Really, Alaina, I’m so sorry.”

Alaina was momentarily stunned to silence by the flurry of activity and the range of reactions going on around her. Her main focus, however, was on Cori, who had run off sobbing as if she’d just committed the crime of the century.

“It’s all right,” she mumbled at Dylan, pushing his hands away. “It’s just a pair of slacks. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal? Alaina, boric acid can’t take out cherry Kool-Aid stains. Nothing on this planet can.”

“I don’t care,” she said, pushing her chair back.

It was Dylan’s turn to be stunned to silence. Fussy, meticulous Alaina didn’t care that his daughter had just ruined her flawless, undoubtedly expensive white pants? Veronica would have been furious. Veronica would have been shouting down the house. Veronica would have been giving Cori a tongue-lashing.

Alaina was disappearing down the hall without a word.

She tried one door and discovered Sam’s room, tried another and found Fibber McGee’s closet. She just managed to push the door shut before the avalanche could start. The third door revealed a room of violet and lavender, cloaked in shadows. The furniture was white and gold, the frilly French-provincial style she had favored as a girl. There was a row of shelves filled with storybooks and stuffed toys. A group of dolls occupied the bed. Kneeling beside it, with her face pressed into
the flowered spread, was Cori Harrison, sobbing her little heart out.

“Cori?” Alaina questioned softly as she stepped inside the room.

“I’m s-sorry.” The apology came muffled and accented with hiccups and sniffles. “I’m s-sorry.”

“I know you are, sweetheart,” Alaina said, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed.

The nervousness that had made her feel awkward and uncomfortable with Dylan’s children melted away to be replaced by empathy and sympathy and a dozen emotions that had been simmering just under the surface. Seeing Cori now was like looking into her own past, her own lonely childhood, and all the times she’d felt as if she had to walk on eggshells around her mother’s latest beau. She could remember incidents painfully similar to this one—some accidents, some purposely staged to test the false affections of a prospective stepfather, all of them ending in tears and disappointment. No one had ever come to her room to comfort or console her.

“I r-ruined your p-pretty outfit,” Cori sobbed. “I d-didn’t m-mean it.”

“I know. It was an accident.”

The little girl lifted her head and looked up at Alaina. Her face was streaked with tears, her brown eyes glistened with them. The coffee-brown curls around her face were wet and matted down. “Aren’t you m-mad at m-me?”

Alaina bit her lip hard to hold back her own tears. She shook her head. In a gesture that suddenly seemed natural to her, she reached out and opened her arms to invite when all her life she’d kept them closed to ward off rejection. Dylan’s daughter hesitated only a second before accepting the invitation. Sniffing back the wave of emotion, Alaina wrapped her arms around Cori and hugged her for all she was worth.

Dylan leaned against the doorjamb, watching through the narrow opening between the frame and the door, which had been left ajar. Tears gathered in his eyes, and he felt the final corner of his heart, that little bit he had been holding in reserve, give way. He was well and truly in love with Alaina Montgomery, and just now it didn’t seem like a bad thing at all.

“Are lawyers really allowed to dress that way?”

Jayne sat cross-legged on Alaina’s sofa, absently folding the pleats in her wildly flowered skirt. An antique straw hat decorated with silk cabbage roses nearly swallowed up her head.

“Once or twice a year we get to take off the pinstripes and gray flannel,” Alaina said as she fastened the latch on her Crystal pin. She assessed her appearance in the mirror above the mantel with a critical eye.

“You look fabulous.”

“I’d better for what this dress cost me.”

The gown of softly shimmering, clinging red
silk began in a neat bow on her right shoulder, then draped enticingly across her bosom, hugging her slender, shapely figure as it followed her body’s curves, nipping in at her waist and stretching snugly over her hips. The skirt was cut at an angle—thigh-high on the right and falling to just below her knee on the left side. The effect was sexy, but very elegant, which was precisely how she felt this evening. She was finally going dancing with Dylan Harrison and all was right with the world.

As she fastened diamond teardrop earrings to her earlobes, she thought back on the week that had passed since she’d had dinner at Dylan’s house. It had been a week of self-discovery, of deepening emotions, of moments of love and moments of blind panic. She didn’t like having her feelings churning so close to the surface, didn’t like the feeling of not being completely in control, but she was gradually becoming more relaxed with the idea of being in love with Dylan. If she had to relinquish some of her control over her emotions, then Dylan was the man to relinquish it to.

Her relationship with Sam and Cori was moving
forward as well, slowly, carefully forward. All of them were holding back a little, a little wary of committing too much of their bruised hearts too soon. But it was progress nevertheless.

Jayne’s amazed voice cut into her musings. “Dylan really agreed to put on a tux and take you to this shindig?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to say that it had been part of the deal, but Alaina bit the words back. The structure of the deal had changed to the point that she didn’t like to think about the original scheme anymore. She gave her friend a peeved look as she crossed the room to answer the door. “Of course he agreed to take me. Not even Dylan dresses like a bum all of the time.”

She swung the door open and her jaw dropped. Dylan stood on her doorstep dressed in his Dr. Who costume, the brown frock coat buttoned up to his throat, the long, multicolored scarf wound around his neck, the hat tipped at a jaunty angle above his eye. He grinned and gave her a wink as he stepped past her and into the living room.

“You look surprised, Princess. You did say formal attire, didn’t you?”

“What is this, Harrison?” she demanded through clenched teeth.

“No, Who is this,” Dylan corrected her good-naturedly as he dug into his pocket and pulled out his rumpled bag of candy. “We’ve been through all this before. Jelly Baby?”

Alaina glared at him. “Are you aware that thirty-nine percent of the homicides in this country are committed against men who underdress for social occasions? And I might point out to you, there are blunt instruments in this room crying out to become evidence in a murder trial.”

“Time for me to go,” Jayne chirped, popping up from the sofa. “I have no desire to witness a crime of passion.”

“Why not?” Alaina asked sardonically, circling Dylan like a she-wolf. “You’ve already been a witness to a crime of
fashion
.”

“I told you, you should have taken the podiatrist,” Marlene interjected from the open door-way, her mouth turning down in her Deputy Skreawupp frown. “If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times—the two of you aren’t compatible at all.”