Keeping Company (5 page)

A bolt of alarm shot through Dylan as he took
in Alaina’s sudden pallor. He took her by the arm and guided her toward a chair. “Are you all right?”

Her heart was going about two ten. She stared at his hand on her forearm. His long, tan fingers were a stark contrast against her fair skin. The heat his touch generated flowed up her arm and across her chest, pooling behind her nipples.

Get hold of yourself, Alaina
, she ordered sternly, stopping in her tracks. The only things she had in common with her mother, the oft-married Helene Barbach, were a few chromosomes and an allergy to shellfish. She herself wasn’t at all the sort to succumb to common lust; she was much too in control of herself for that sort of idiotic nonsense.

“Princess?” Dylan asked again, a deep, genuine concern thrumming through him. “Are you all right?”

Alaina’s head snapped up, her eyes glittering with temper. He was a threat, challenging her control with his damnable sexiness. The cad. She was as angry with him for being so darn attractive as she was at the situation his outrageous behavior had landed them in.

“Of course I’m not all right,” she said crossly. “I’m being arrested.”

Dylan plopped down on a chair, looking morose. “You’re right. We’re being run in like a couple of common lowlifes. It’s the end of the world as we know it.”

In an instant he was on his knees in front of Deputy Skreawupp’s desk, his long scarf dusting the floor, his arms outstretched in a gesture of supplication. “Please, Deputy, you can’t send me up the river to the big house! I couldn’t make it, I tell ya!”

Alaina pressed a fist to her mouth to stifle her laughter. The man was outrageous. No matter how hard she tried to stay angry with him, he kept appealing to her sense of humor—with smashing success.

Dylan shot her a disgruntled look over his shoulder. “Could you hold the laughs? You’re spoiling my big scene.”

“Sorry,” she mumbled, biting her lip.

He turned back to the deputy, instantly falling back into character. “I’d be a total wash in prison. I can’t play the harmonica, and I don’t know all
the words to ‘Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen.’ ”

“Jeez,” the deputy grumbled, “what a weirdo.”

“Actually, I’m a Time Lord,” Dylan said, standing and dusting off the knees of his baggy trousers. “Dr. Who.”

“Who?”

Alaina groaned and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Here we go again.”

“Don’t start with me, pal,” the deputy said, shaking a meaty finger at Dylan. He narrowed his beady eyes until they were mere slits in his fleshy face. “I’ll bust you like a ripe melon.”

Dylan grimaced. “You have a real talent for visual imagery. Have you ever thought of writing children’s books?”

A ferocious scowl was his only answer.

Dylan tugged down the bottom of his waistcoat, clearing his throat as he prepared to launch into his explanation. “You see, it’s this way, Deputy. I was on my way to a science fiction theme party, dressed as Dr. Who. Tom Baker’s Dr. Who, to be precise. He’s my personal favorite. Though I’m also quite fond of Peter Davison’s
portrayal of the doctor.” At the deputy’s growl of impatience he decided to skip the details and get on with the story. “Anyhow, I stopped to assist this lovely lady with her car, and a huge misunderstanding ensued.”

“You know Jayne Jordan?” Alaina blurted out.

Dylan nodded.

“I should have guessed,” she mumbled. If there was an oddball within fifty miles—and there were plenty in northern California—Jayne knew him. If they happened to be single men, she usually tried to coerce Alaina into going out with them. Jayne, who was a widow, was a notorious matchmaker when it came to her friends. Alaina shuddered to think of what oddball might have been awaiting her at the party tonight. Getting arrested may have had its upside after all.

“You’re a friend of Jayne’s?” Dylan asked. He had already surmised as much, but her nod of confirmation still surprised him. Alaina Montgomery didn’t strike him as being the type to hang out with someone of Jayne’s … uniqueness.

“We went to college together.”

“So what say we get this Jayne broad down
here to vouch for you?” Deputy Skreawupp suggested. He took a bottle of triple-strength aspirin out of a desk drawer and shook out half a handful.

Alaina perked up. “You’re not going to throw me in the clink?”

“Lady, you’re more trouble than you’re worth. I don’t need it,” he said flatly. “I’ll let you both off with a fine for creating a public nuisance.”

Alaina opened her mouth to protest. Suddenly Dylan was beside her, clamping a hand over her denial. Sliding down next to her, he smiled charmingly and whispered, “Quit while you’re behind, Princess. So far, you’ve insulted his family name, called him incompetent, and threatened to sue. All in all, I’d say we’re getting off lucky.”

She sat back in her chair and absently rubbed her hand over her chin where Dylan had touched her. Calling Jayne in wasn’t necessarily a great idea. Who knew what she would come in dressed up as? On the other hand, there really wasn’t anyone else she could call. Of the trio of friends who had moved to Anastasia, Faith was easy to get to know, and Jayne was the kind of person who befriended people on sight. Alaina tended to hold
herself a little apart from people. Instinctively wary of relationships, she could count her close friends on her fingers. Consequently, she knew virtually no one in her new home.

Faith would have been the one to call. She radiated trustworthiness. Besides, her husband-to-be was a former top-notch Federal agent. Deputy Screwup would have melted under the power of Shane Callan’s stare. But Faith had gone to Maine to meet Shane’s family.

The only other person Alaina knew well at all in Anastasia was the woman who rented out the other half of her duplex, her new secretary, Marlene Desidarian. Having the secretary of her soon-to-open law practice come down essentially to bail her out of jail did not seem a prudent business strategy.

That left Jayne.

“Deal,” she said, sending the stony-faced deputy a dazzling smile.

Dylan had watched her as she’d contemplated. He had practically heard the well-oiled wheels whirring in her brain as she considered strategies. A grudging admiration knotted with a sense of
foreboding in his chest. He was attracted to Alaina Montgomery—big-time. The wallop her smile delivered confirmed it; it wasn’t even directed at him, and still he felt reverberations clear to his toes.

He frowned as he sat back and squared one booted leg over the other. He was definitely going to have to watch his step here.

The call to Jayne was confusing to say the very least, but that was no surprise to Alaina. She only hoped her scatterbrained friend had understood the message. The theme music from
Star Trek
had been blaring in the background, making conversation virtually impossible. All she could do now was wait, she thought as she slid back down on her chair, carefully arranging her sinfully short skirt to cover the tops of her thighs.

Dylan sipped the herb tea Mrs. Fletcher had served them, wondering what he was doing hanging around. He had been sufficiently vouched for. He was free to go. But … His gaze strayed Alaina’s way. She looked sort of forlorn now that
the fight was over. She wasn’t at all the kind of woman he wanted to spend his time with, and yet …

It was those legs, he thought, groaning inwardly as he watched her cross one lovely gam over the other.

“So, you and Jayne went to college together.”

“Yes. Notre Dame, class of ’77,” Alaina said, gritting her teeth as she realized she’d just dated herself.

“Well, I know Jayne’s story. How did you end up in Anastasia?”

Chasing rainbows
, Alaina thought, a small, rueful smile canting her lips. Running from one dream in search of another. Those weren’t the answers she gave, however. Admitting confusion was tantamount to admitting a weakness. That wasn’t something she did easily.

She gave Dylan a careless shrug. “I was burned out. I needed a change of scenery.”

So, she would be here only temporarily, Dylan decided. She’d said she was the youngest partner in the history of her firm back in Chicago. That meant she had ambition. Ambitious women
didn’t stay long in a town like Anastasia. They came for the sea air and a dose of simplicity and quaint coastal charm, then they packed their Gucci bags and climbed in their yuppie-mobiles and headed back to their corporate offices for another round of ladder-climbing.

A sigh escaped him as his baser male instincts began mourning the departure of those mouth-watering legs.

She was going to be here only as long as it took her to recharge her ambition and work up a new appetite for conquering the male-dominated world. That made her less dangerous to him, didn’t it? He knew she was all wrong for him, knew she wasn’t staying. With those lines of distinction drawn, didn’t that mean he could enjoy her company while she was here?

It was truly remarkable the rationalization a great pair of legs could inspire, he thought. He was actually contemplating spending time with Alaina Montgomery. The idea settled in his mind, then drifted lower as he imagined all the ways he could enjoy those beautifully shaped limbs that were now encased in black mesh stockings. Let’s
see, there was looking, caressing, wrapping them around his—

“What does one do at a bar and bait shop?” Alaina queried, more to get his attention off her legs than anything. The intensity of his dark gaze had her squirming on her chair. Of course, she pretended not to be affected in the least. Why, her hands barely shook at all as she lit her cigarette. It was a real victory of a woman’s higher nature over her animal instincts.

Dylan sent her a devilish smile, knowing full well women like Alaina had an innate disdain for men who didn’t wear Brooks Brothers suits. A bar and bait shop was way out of the realm of respectability for her. He wondered cynically how bored she would have sounded had he informed her that he had once been a hotshot investment counselor. “I sell bait to sport fishermen, a buddy of mine rents them boats, then when they get back at the end of the day, they get drunk on my liquor and lie about all the big fish that got away.”

She sent a thin blue stream of smoke into the air and arched a brow. “Sounds like a racket.”

“Yeah. It’s called free enterprise. Have dinner with me tomorrow night.”

“I beg your pardon?” Alaina sat back in her chair, completely caught off balance by his request. What a devious tactic, changing subjects that way. She couldn’t help but admire his strategy. He was handsome
and
clever. That was a rare and dangerously appealing combination.

“Dinner,” he said affably. “You know, it’s that meal at the end of the day.”

She shot him a look. “I know what dinner is.”

“Good, then we’re over that hurdle.” He leaned forward on his chair, warming to the idea of a date almost as much as he was warming up from leering at the lawyer’s lovely legs. “I know a great little place up near Russian Gulch, very quiet, out of the way, great dance band. So, it’s a date?”

“It’s not a date!” Alaina declared, scooting over on her chair as if she were afraid to have him breathe on her. In fact, she was trying to escape the lure of his body heat and the shiver of delicious anticipation his suggestion had set loose inside her. She would not succumb to her hormones, she
stated inwardly, though less emphatically than before. Her shoulders squared defensively, thrusting her full breasts out in a way that made Dylan groan low in his throat. “I won’t go out with you. I hardly know you. Why, not an hour ago I thought you were a social deviant.”

He looked wounded, dramatically clutching his hands to his heart as if her words had been a dagger plunged into his chest. “How can you say you hardly know me? How can you say that after all we’ve shared? We’ve been arrested together!” Leaning so close to Alaina, just a deep breath away from kissing her, he lowered his voice to a devastatingly sexy pitch. “We’ve shared handcuffs. I usually save that for the third or fourth date.”

Ignoring the warm tingles his nearness—not to mention his audacious admission—brought on, Alaina gave him an incredulous look and shoved him back into his own space. “You’re completely irreverent!”

“That’s true. I don’t have a reverent bone in my body. It made headlines in the
Enquirer
when I was born:
‘Mystery Baby Born Without Reverent Bones—Space Alien or Love Child of Elvis’ Ghost?’ ”

“See there?” Alaina said, waving an elegant hand in a dismissive gesture as she bit back her laughter. Her cool blue eyes sparkled like ice on a sunny winter day. “I don’t date men who read the
Enquirer
, let alone men who make the front page.”

“Snob,” he accused good-naturedly.

She smiled and tapped her ash into the cheap tin Reno, Nevada, souvenir ashtray she’d taken off Deputy Skreawupp’s desk. “Yes, I am.”

“And darn proud of it,” Dylan declared emphatically, slapping his thigh.

“Naturally.”

Dylan grinned. The impact of that dazzling smile nearly knocked Alaina off her chair. Lord, he was handsome, bar and bait shop or not. And he was really quite charming in a tacky sort of way.

“If you’re going to do something, do it well, I say. Or, as my father likes to put it, if you go hunting for bear, don’t come home with a greasy dead possum.”

Alaina grimaced. “What a disgusting backwoods maxim.”

“I come from disgusting backwoods stock,” Dylan admitted with a smile. “Hayseeds and bumpkins abound on my family tree. We even have a mountain man or two.”

“Better than I had imagined,” Alaina quipped. “Still, it’s another perfectly legitimate reason why I can’t go out with you; you’re ill-bred.”

She was cut from the same cloth as Veronica Howard, all right, Dylan thought. But there was one big difference between Alaina Montgomery and his ex-wife. Alaina’s sardonic tone was laced with martini-dry good humor. When Veronica had derided his background, she’d meant every word. Alaina seemed to enjoy playing the role of the upwardly mobile, materialistic ice princess, but he sensed there was more to her than that.

Catching a glimpse of her cleavage, he held his breath tight in his lungs. Brother, was there more to her!