The Dating Game

Sandra Field

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ONE

HE WAS in a foul mood.

Teal Carruthers rolled down his car window. Several vehicles ahead of him, at the traffic lights, a delivery truck and a taxi had collided at the intersection; a tow truck and a police car were adding to the confusion without, as far as he could see, in any way ameliorating it. Behind him the cars were lined up as far as he could see. He looked at his watch. Five to five. He was going to be late home.

Today was Monday. On Mondays Mrs Inkpen came to clean the house and stayed with his son Scott until he, Teal, got home at five. Scott liked Mrs Inkpen, whose language was colorful and whose cooking bore no relation to the rules of good nutrition. Teal had gotten in the habit of taking Scott out for supper on Mondays, in theory to save Mrs Inkpen the trouble of preparing a meal, in actuality to protect himself from hot dogs adorned with anything from cream cheese to crunchy peanut butter. Even Scott, as he recalled, had not been too crazy about the peanut butter.

Mrs Inkpen didn’t like him to be late.

The driver of the tow truck was sweeping up the broken glass on the road and the policeman was taking a statement from the truck driver. Teal ran his fingers through his hair and rested his elbow on the window-ledge. It was the first really hot day of the summer, the kind of day that made Scott, aged eight, complain loudly about having to go to school. Heat was shimmering off the tarred surface of the road and the smell of exhaust fumes was almost enough to make Teal close his window.

The policeman shoved his notebook in his back pocket and began directing the traffic. Teal eased the BMW in gear and inched forward. Bad enough that he was late. Worse that he had had an interminable day in court. Worst of all was the fact that he had enough work in his briefcase to keep him up past midnight.

The traffic light turned red. He should never have trusted Mike with the brief today; that had been a bad mistake. A really bad mistake. Particularly with old Mersey presiding. Mr Chief Justice Mersey had been trying to trip Teal up for the last three years, and today he had more than succeeded. And all because Teal had left Mike, his brilliant but erratic assistant, to cross-examine one of the prosecution’s main witnesses.

Mike, Teal now suspected, had been suffering from a hangover. In consequence he had been erratic rather than brilliant, and had committed not one but two errors of procedure. Mersey had had a field day chewing him out and Teal had been left holding the bag. Which meant he now had to rebuild their case from scratch. The only good thing about the day was that court had recessed until Wednesday. Tonight once Scott was in bed he’d have to get a sitter and chase down his two main witnesses, and tomorrow he’d catch up with the rest of them. Both nights he’d be burning the midnight oil to come up with Wednesday’s strategy.

Who was he kidding? The three a.m. oil was more like it.

But Willie McNeill was innocent. Teal would stake his life on it. And it was up to him to produce enough doubt in the minds of the jurors so that they couldn’t possibly bring in a guilty verdict.

It wouldn’t be easy. But he could do it.

The light turned green. The traffic began to move and the bus that was two cars ahead belched out a cloud of black smoke. The policeman was sweating under his helmet, while the cabbie and the truck driver were laughing uproariously at some private joke. Very funny, Teal thought morosely. It was now ten past five.

By the time he turned into his driveway it was twenty-five past and Mrs Inkpen was waiting for him on the back porch. She was clad in a full-length pink raincoat with a hat jammed on her brassy curls, her pose as militant as an Amazon. Before Teal had married Elizabeth, Mrs Inkpen had cleaned for Elizabeth’s parents, and he sometimes thought she should have been included on the marriage license. Although she was now well over retiring age, his tactful suggestions that she might prefer to be home with her ageing husband were met with loud disclaimers; she was fanatically loyal.

Bracing himself, he climbed out of the car. Mrs Inkpen tapped her watch ostentatiously. ‘This’ll cost you overtime, Mr C,’ she said. ‘If I’d known you was goin’ to be this late, I could’ve cooked you a nice supper.’

At least he had been spared that. ‘There was an accident on the corner of Robie and Coburg.’

Her eyes brightened. ‘Anyone hurt?’

He shook his head, almost hating to disappoint her. ‘A lot of broken glass and a traffic tie-up, that’s all.’

‘Drugs,’ she said, nodding her head sagely. ‘That’s what it is, all them drugs. I said to my Albert just the other day, what with crack and hash and pot you can’t trust no one these days. Never know when someone’s goin’ to creep up behind you and bash you on the head.’ She rolled her eyes theatrically. ‘Course you know all about that, Mr C, you bein’ a lawyer and all.’

Mrs Inkpen’s vision of what he did all day was drawn from television, and bore little resemblance to reality. He said hurriedly, before she could ask him about his day, ‘Can I give you a drive home to apologize for being late?’

‘No need for that, I got to keep the old bones movin’,’ she said, her good humor restored. ‘Smell the lilac, Mr C; ain’t it a treat?’

Elizabeth had planted the lilac the year Scott had been born. Its plumes of tiny blossoms were a deep purple, the scent as pungent as spice. She had planned to plant a white lilac for the daughter that was to have followed Scott...

Wincing away from all the old memories, for there had been no daughter and now Elizabeth was dead, Teal said evenly, ‘Lovely, yes...we’ll see you next week, then, Mrs Inkpen.’

She gave him a conspiratorial grin. ‘That nice Mrs Thurston phoned, and so did Patsy Smythe. It must be great to be so popular, Mr C—you don’t never have to worry about a date on a Saturday night, do you?’ The yellow daisies on her hat bobbed up and down. ‘It’s because you’re so handsome,’ she pronounced. ‘Like the men in the soaps, is what I tell Albert—the ones the girls are always falling for. If I was twenty years younger, my Albert might be in trouble.’ Cackling with laughter, she set off down the driveway between the tangle of forsythias and rose bushes.

The bushes all needed pruning. Scowling, because when was he supposed to find the time to get out in the garden and besides, Mrs Inkpen couldn’t be more wrong—it was a damned nuisance to be so popular—Teal grabbed his briefcase from the back seat and went into the house. ‘Scott?’ he called. ‘I’m home.’

The kitchen, starkly decorated in white and grey, was abnormally tidy. Mrs Inkpen achieved this effect, so Teal had realized soon after Elizabeth died, by opening the nearest drawer or cupboard and shoving everything inside. Any normal man would have fired her months ago. But he was fond of her, and loyalty worked both ways.

The telephone sat on a built-in pine desk by the window; the green light on his answering machine was flashing twice. His scowl deepened. One of those flashes, he would be willing to bet, was Janine, wanting him to confirm their date this weekend. Janine was nothing if not persistent. He didn’t want to know who the other one was. He sometimes felt as though every woman in Halifax under the age of fifty was after him, each one certain that all he needed was a wife, a mother for his son, or a lover. Or a combination of all three, he thought with a twist to his mouth.

They were all wrong. He was doing a fine job bringing up Scott on his own, so why would he need to remarry? As for the needs of his body, they were buried so deeply he sometimes thought he should apply to the nearest monastery.

The telephone rang, breaking into his thoughts. Warily he picked it up and said hello.

‘Teal? This is Sheila McNab, do you remember me? We met at the board meeting last week. How are you?’

He did remember her. A well-packaged brunette whose laugh had grated on his nerves. They chatted a few minutes, then she said, ‘I’m wondering if you’d be free on Saturday evening to go to a barbecue in Chester with me? A friend of mine is celebrating her birthday.’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible, Sheila; I already have plans that night,’ he said truthfully.

‘Oh...well, perhaps another time.’

‘Actually I’m very busy these days. My job’s extremely demanding and I’m a single parent as well...but it was nice of you to think of me, and perhaps we’ll meet again some time.’

He put down the phone, feeling trapped in his own kitchen. Maybe he should shave his head and put on thirty pounds. Would that make the women leave him alone?

He heard Scott’s footsteps thump down the stairs, followed by a swish that meant his son had taken to the banisters. The boy landed with a thud on the hall floor and came rushing into the room, waving a sheet of paper in one hand. ‘Guess what, Dad?’ he cried. ‘There’s a home and school meeting on Thursday, and you’ll get to meet Danny’s mum because she’s going, too.’

Teal’s smile faded. The last thing he needed was one more woman to add to the list. Especially such a paragon as Danny’s mother. ‘I thought home and school was finished for the year,’ he said temperately, rumpling his son’s dark hair.

Scott ducked, sending out a quick punch at his father’s midriff. Teal flicked one back, and a moment later the pair of them were rolling around the kitchen floor in a time-honored ritual. ‘Is that your soccer shirt?’ Teal grunted. ‘It needs washing in the worst way.’

‘It’ll only get dirty again,’ Scott said with unanswerable logic, bouncing up and down on his father’s chest. ‘The meeting’s so you can see our art stuff and our scribblers before school gets out; you’ll come, won’t you, Dad? Maybe we could take Danny and his mum with us,’ he added hopefully. ‘She’s real nice; you’d like her. She made chocolate-fudge cookies today, I brought a couple home for you; she said I could.’

Janine, who had marriage in mind, had sent Teal flowers last weekend, and Cindy Thurston, who wanted something more immediate and less permanent than marriage, had tried to present him with a bottle of the finest brandy. He didn’t want Danny’s mother’s chocolate-fudge cookies. ‘I’d rather we went on our own,’ he said. ‘And you must change your shirt before we go out for supper.’

Scott stuck out his jaw. ‘She’s beautiful—like a movie star.’

Teal blinked. What eight-year-old noticed that his best friend’s mother was beautiful? Feeling his antipathy toward the unknown woman increase in leaps and bounds, he said, ‘There are clean shirts in your drawer. Move it.’

‘She’s prettier than Janine,’ Scott said stubbornly.

Janine was a ravishing redhead. Teal sighed. ‘I’m sure we’ll meet her at the school,’ he said.

And I’ll be polite if it kills me. But just because her son and mine are fast turning into best friends it doesn’t mean she has to become part of my life. I’ve got problems enough as it is, he added silently.

‘Her name’s Julie.’ Scott tugged on his father’s silk tie. ‘Can we go to Burger King to eat, Dad?’

‘Sure,’ said Teal. ‘Providing you have milk and not pop.’

With a loud whoop Scott took off across the room. Teal followed at a more moderate pace, loosening the knot on his tie. A sweatshirt and jeans were going to feel good after the day he’d had. He’d better phone for a sitter and drink lots of coffee with his hamburger so he’d stay awake tonight.

He was going to ignore both his phone messages until tomorrow.

* * *

Julie Ferris turned her new CD player up another notch and raised the pitch of her own voice correspondingly. She was no match for John Denver or Placido Domingo, but that didn’t bother her. At the top of her lungs she sang about the memories of love, deciding that if even one of the men currently pursuing her could sing like that she might be inclined to keep on dating him.

Not a chance. On the occasions when her dates came to pick her up at the house, she sometimes contrived to have this song playing, fortissimo. Most of them ignored it; a few said they liked it; the odd one complained of the noise. But none burst into ravishing song.

It was just as well, she thought. She really didn’t want to get involved with anyone yet; it was too soon after the divorce. Anyway, if the men she’d met so far were anything to go by, the options weren’t that great. She was better off single.

‘...dreams come true...’ she carolled, putting the finishing touches to the chicken casserole she was making for supper. The sun was streaming in the kitchen window and the birds were chirping in the back garden. The garden was so painfully and geometrically orderly that she was almost surprised any self-respecting bird would visit it. On Friday she was going to find a nursery and do her best to create some colour and confusion among the right-angled beds with their trimmed shrubs and military rows of late red tulips.

Technically, her landlady had not forbidden her to do so. She had merely made it clear that she expected the house and the garden to be maintained in apple-pie order. An odd phrase, apple-pie order, Julie mused. A phrase she intended to interpret liberally.

The phone rang. Wiping her hands on the dishcloth, she crossed the kitchen to answer it, chuckling as Einstein the cat swiped at the cord with one large paw. She and Danny had only lived here for six weeks and already she had acquired a stray cat, an unkempt gray male who for the first week had eaten voraciously and virtually ignored them. Now, however, he was intent on running the household. She had called him Einstein because, despite his mass, he could move with the speed of light. ‘Hello?’ she said.

‘Julie? Wayne here.’

She had had a date with Wayne last Saturday night; he was an intern at the hospital where she worked. They had seen an entertaining film she had enjoyed, had had an entirely civilized conversation about it over drinks at a bar, and then Wayne had driven her home, parking his sports car in her driveway. Before she had realized his intention he had suddenly been all over her, as if she were a wrestler he was trying to subdue. His hands had touched her in places she considered strictly off-limits, and his mouth had attacked hers with a technical expertise she had found truly insulting. She had pulled free from a kiss whose intimacy he in no way had earned and had scrambled out of the car, her lipstick smeared and her clothes disheveled. She had not expected to hear from him again.

‘Julie—you there? Want to take in a film Friday night?’

Julie had, unfortunately, she sometimes thought, been well brought up. ‘No, thank you,’ she said.

‘That film we talked about last Saturday is playing in Dartmouth; you said you hadn’t seen it.’

She could lie and say she had plans for Friday night. She said, ‘Wayne, I don’t like having to fight my dates off. I’d rather not go out with you again.’

There was an appreciable pause. Then he said, sounding aggrieved, ‘Fight me off? What are you talking about?’

‘I have some say in who kisses me, that’s what I’m talking about.’

‘Hey, don’t be so uptight—it was no big deal.’

‘You felt like a tidal wave,’ she said shortly. Large and wet and overwhelming.

‘Don’t tell me you’re one of those feminists who charges a guy with assault if he as much as looks at them.’

Refusing to pursue this undoubted red herring, she said, ‘I can hear my son getting home from school; I’ve got to go, Wayne.’

‘What about the movie?’

‘No, thanks,’ she said crisply, and replaced the receiver.

Wayne was not the first of her dates to exercise what she considered liberties with her person and what they plainly considered normal—even expected—behavior. Robert had always told her she was unsophisticated, she thought grimly. Maybe he was right.

There was a loud squeal of brakes and then twin rattles as two bikes were leaned against the fence. Julie smiled to herself. Danny was home, and by the sound of it Scott was with him. A nice boy, Scott Carruthers, she decided thoughtfully. How glad she was that Danny and he had become such fast friends; it had eased the move from the country to the city immeasurably.

‘Hi, Mum,’ Danny cried, almost tumbling in the door in his haste. ‘Scott fell off his bike and he’s bleeding; can you fix him up?’

As Scott limped into the kitchen, any lingering thoughts about the peculiarities of male dating behavior dropped from Julie’s mind. She quickly washed her hands at the sink, assessing the ugly grazes on Scott’s bare knees. ‘Danny, would you get the first-aid kit from the bathroom cupboard?’ she said. ‘That must be hurting, Scott.’

‘Kind of,’ said Scott, sitting down heavily on the nearest chair and scowling at his knees.

No two boys could be more different than Danny and Scott. Even discounting a mother’s natural love for her son, Julie knew Danny was an exceptionally handsome little boy, with his thick blond hair, so like her own, and his big blue eyes, the image of Robert’s. He was shy, tending to be a loner, and she had worried a great deal about uprooting him from the country village that had been his home since he was born. Scott, on the other hand, was a wiry, dark-haired extrovert, passionately fond of soccer and baseball, who had drawn Danny very naturally into a whole circle of new friends and activities.

She knelt down beside Scott, using a sterile gauze pad to pick the dirt from his scraped knees. Although he was being very stoical, she could see the glint of tears in his eyes. She said matter-of-factly, ‘How did you fall off?’

‘He was teaching me how to do wheelies,’ Danny announced. ‘But the bike hit a bump.’

Wheelies involved driving the bicycle on the back wheel only. Julie said, ‘Not on the street, I hope.’

‘Nope,’ Scott said. ‘Ouch, that hurts...my Dad said he’d confiscate my bike if he ever caught me doing wheelies on the street. Confiscate means take away,’ he added, bunching his fists against the pain. ‘My dad’s a lawyer, so he knows lots of big words.’

The lawyer she had consulted to safeguard her interests in the divorce had charged her a great deal of money to do very little; Julie made a non-committal sound and wished Scott had practised his wheelies on grass rather than gravel. ‘We’re nearly done,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry I’m hurting you.’

‘Do nurses always hurt people?’ Scott asked pugnaciously.

Julie looked up, startled. There was more behind that question than simple curiosity. But she had no idea what. She said cautiously, ‘They try very hard not to hurt anyone. But sometimes they have to, I guess.’

His scowl was back in full force. ‘You work in a hospital; Danny told me you do.’

‘That’s right.’

‘My mum died in hospital.’

Julie sat back on her heels. Danny had talked a lot about Scott but very little about his parents, she now realized. While there had been mention of a housekeeper—a Mrs Inkpen—Julie had assumed that the mother worked as well as the father, necessitating someone to stay with Scott. ‘I didn’t know that, Scott,’ she said softly. ‘How long ago did it happen?’

Scott looked as though he was regretting his outburst. ‘Two years ago,’ he mumbled.

‘I’m sorry she’s dead; you must miss her.’

‘Sometimes I do, yeah...but my dad always took me to the soccer games, so that’s still okay.’

The scrape on Scott’s other knee was not nearly as dirty. As gently as she could Julie cleaned it up, then applied antibiotic ointment and two new pads. ‘Use this tape, Mum,’ Danny suggested.

The roll of tape had Walt Disney characters printed on it in bright colors. Julie used lots of it and asked, ‘How does that feel?’

As Scott stood up gingerly, Danny interposed, ‘I bet a popsicle’d make him feel better.’

Julie laughed. ‘I bet you’re right. I still have a few chocolate-fudge cookies, too.’

‘We could go over to your place and play in the tree house,’ Danny added.

‘The cookies could be emergency rations,’ Scott said, brightening.

‘As long as you’re home by five-thirty, Danny,’ Julie said, packing two brown paper bags with cookies and juice, then watching as the boys wobbled down the driveway on their bikes.

So Scott had no mother, and Danny no father; maybe that was another reason why the boys had become friends. Even if Scott’s father was a lawyer, he was doing a good job with his son, she thought generously, and went inside to slice the carrots.

The first Saturday night she was free, she might just take herself to see that film Wayne had offered to take her to. Alone.

One thing was sure: she wouldn’t go with Wayne.

* * *

Because Scott had a dentist appointment at four-thirty on Wednesday, Teal left work immediately after court recessed. He hadn’t let Mike say a word all day, and he’d been able to cast more than a reasonable doubt on several of the prosecution’s main points. Which, for a man who had had less than five hours’ sleep, wasn’t bad.

He glanced at his watch. He didn’t have a whole lot of time; the most difficult thing about being a single parent was the inevitable conflict between his work and his son’s needs.

He navigated the traffic with absent-minded skill, and, when he drew up next to the house, honked the horn. The last thing he’d told Scott this morning was to be ready and waiting.

Scott did not appear. Teal leaned on the horn. He and Danny might be in the tree house, in which case they would have to scan the neighborhood, lower the rope ladder that kept enemies at bay, and then slither to the ground, clutching to their chests forked twigs that doubled as guns and slingshots.

But there were no bicycles leaning against the back porch. Impatiently Teal got out of the car, a tall, commanding figure in a pin-striped suit, and scanned the garden himself. ‘Scott?’ he called. ‘Hurry up, we’re going to be late.’

When neither boy appeared, he took the back steps two at a time and let himself in the door, which was firmly locked. There was a note propped on the kitchen table. ‘School got out erly, a pipe berst,’ it said. ‘Gone to Danny’s.’

His son might be a hotshot soccer player. But he was a lousy speller, Teal thought, and rummaged for the scrap of paper bearing Danny’s phone number. He finally located it at the very bottom of the pile and dialed it quickly. A busy signal burred in his ear. Grimacing, he glanced at his watch and dialed it again. Still busy.

It was probably Danny’s mother talking. In which case the phone could be tied up for hours, he thought with total unfairness. He’d better go over there right now. And he’d better hurry.

Danny lived six houses down the street in a stucco bungalow with a painfully tidy garden, which Teal disliked on sight. He parked on the street and marched up the narrow concrete path to the front door. The brass knocker was tarnished; Danny’s mother wasn’t quite the perfectionist that the garden would suggest. He pressed the doorbell and waited.

No one came. Through the open living-room window he could hear music, very loud music that was undoubtedly drowning out the sound of the bell. Feeling his temper rise, he pressed it again.

This time when no one came he pulled the screen door open and was about to pound on the door when the breeze wafted it open. Didn’t she know this was the city, and that she should keep her doors locked? Stupid woman, he fumed. He went inside, wincing at the sheer volume of sound coming from the stereo equipment. Diana Ross, unless he was mistaken, singing something sultry and bluesy accompanied by a muted trumpet. It was not music calculated to improve his mood; he didn’t want to hear a sensual, husky voice or the evocative slide of a trumpet over melancholy notes in a minor key. He had closed off that part of himself a long time ago.

Noises from the kitchen overrode the music. Teal strode down the hall and stopped in the doorway.

The four occupants of the kitchen all had their backs turned to him. Danny was leaning against the counter holding an imaginary trumpet, wailing tunelessly. Scott was perched on a stool licking cookie dough from his fingers. A scruffy gray cat was sitting on the counter next to him, washing its oversized paws much too close to the bowl of dough for Teal’s liking. And, finally, a woman with a sheaf of streaked blonde hair held back by a ragged piece of purple ribbon was standing near the stove. She was singing along with Diana Ross, belting out the words with clear enjoyment.

Teal opened his mouth to say something. But before he could the buzzer on the stove went off, adding to the racket. The woman switched it off, swathed her hands in a pair of large mitts and bent to open the oven door.

She was wearing an old pair of denim shorts with a frayed hem, and a blue top that bared her arms and a wide strip of skin above her waist. The shorts must once have been jeans, which had been cut off. Cut off too high, Teal thought with a dry mouth, his eyes glued to the delectable, lightly tanned curves of her thighs, and the taut pull of the fabric as she leaned over to lift a cookie sheet out of the oven. He was suddenly angry beyond belief, irrationally, ridiculously angry, with no idea why.

‘Perfect,’ she said, and turned round to put the cookies on the rack on the counter.

She saw him instantly, gave a shriek of alarm and dropped the metal pan on the counter with a loud clatter. The cat leaped to the floor, taking a glass of juice with it. The glass, not surprisingly, smashed to pieces. The boys swerved in unison, gaping at him with open mouths. And the woman said furiously, ‘Just who do you think you are, walking into my house without even so much as ringing the doorbell?’

Scott was right, Teal thought blankly. Danny’s mother was beautiful. Quite incredibly beautiful, considering that she had a blob of flour on her nose, no make-up, and clothes that could have been bought at a rummage sale. He searched for something to say, he who was rarely at a loss for words, struggling to keep his gaze above the level of her cleavage.

‘Hi, Dad,’ Scott said. ‘Boy, you sure scared the cat.’

‘His name’s Einstein,’ Danny chimed in. ‘Mum says that’s ‘cause he bends time and space.’

Teal took a deep breath and said with a calmness that would have impressed Mr Chief Justice Mersey, ‘He certainly bent the glass—sorry about that. I’m Scott’s father, Mrs Ferris...Teal Carruthers.’

‘Julie Ferris,’ Julie corrected automatically. Ever since Robert had walked out on her that last time, she had disliked the title Mrs. ‘Did you ring the doorbell?’ she asked, more to give herself time to think than because she was interested in the answer.

‘I did. But it couldn’t compete with Diana Ross.’ He added, wondering if her eyes were gray or blue, ‘You should keep the door locked, you know.’

‘I forget,’ she said shortly. ‘I’m used to living in the country.’

Why hadn’t Danny warned her that Scott’s father was so outrageously attractive? The most attractive man she’d ever met. Teal Carruthers wasn’t as classically handsome as Robert, and looked as though he would be more at home in sports clothes than a pin-striped suit; but his eyes were the clear gray of a rain-washed lake, set under smudged lashes as dark and thick as his hair, and his body, carried with a kind of unconscious grace that made her hackles rise, was beautifully proportioned.

‘Do you always let the cat sit on the counter?’ he added. ‘I thought nurses believed in hygiene.’

‘Are you always so critical?’ she snapped back, and with faint dismay realised that the two boys were, of course, listening to every word.

‘If my son’s to spend time in your house, I’d much prefer you to keep the doors locked,’ he replied with an air of formal restraint that added to her irritation. What was the matter with her? She normally liked meeting new people, and certainly she had no desire to alienate the father of her son’s best friend.

‘That makes sense,’ she said grudgingly, straightening the cookie sheet on the rack. Then she reached for some paper towel and knelt to pick up the shards of glass. Luckily they hadn’t pierced the floor covering; she didn’t think that would fall in the category of apple-pie order.

‘I’ll help,’ Scott said.

As she stooped, Teal was presented with a view of delicate shoulderbones and the shadowed valley between full breasts. Her fingers were long and tapered, and the afternoon sunlight was tangled in her hair. He said flatly, ‘We’re late for your dentist appointment, Scott. I tried to phone you here, but the number was busy.’

‘Darn,’ said Julie. ‘I bet Einstein knocked the phone off the hook again.’

Scott’s face fell. ‘I forgot about the dentist.’

‘We’d better go,’ Teal said, adding punctiliously, ‘Thank you for looking after Scott this afternoon, Mrs Ferris. And for bandaging his knees yesterday—a very professional job.’

‘The bill’s in the mail,’ she said flippantly, getting to her feet. Teal Carruthers didn’t look the slightest bit grateful. And he had yet to crack a smile. ‘I prefer to be called Julie,’ she added, and gave him the dazzling smile she employed only rarely, and which tended to reduce strong men to a stuttering silence.

He didn’t even blink an eyelash. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said, not calling her anything. He then nodded at Danny and left the room, Scott in tow. Julie trailed after him into the living-room, turning down the volume on the stereo as she watched a sleek black BMW pull away from the curb. It would be black, she thought. Black went with the man’s rigidly held mouth, his immaculately tailored suit, his air of cold censure. Amazing that he had such an outgoing son as Scott. Truly amazing.

Her bare feet padding on the hardwood floor, she went to lock the front door.

CHAPTER TWO

THE home and school meeting was between six-thirty and eight on Thursday evening. Julie dressed with care in a plain blue linen tunic over a short matching skirt, her hair loose on her shoulders, and went promptly at six-thirty, partly because she had worked the last of her three overnight shifts the night before and needed to go to bed early, partly with a subconscious hope that she would thereby miss Teal Carruthers. Because of the connection between Danny and Scott it was inevitable that she would meet him sometimes. But there was no need to put herself in his path unnecessarily.

There was no sign of him when she got there. After Danny had shown her all his lively and inaccurate renditions of jet planes and African mammals, she chatted with his homeroom teacher—a pleasant young man she had met once before. The principal came over, a rather officious gentleman by the name of Bidwell, then the gym teacher and two school board representatives. It’s happening again, Julie thought with a quiver of inner amusement. I seem to be gathering every man in the room around me.

The gym teacher, with all the subtlety of a ten-ton truck, had just revealed that he was newly divorced, when Julie glanced past his shoulder and saw Teal Carruthers. With another spurt of inner laughter she saw that if she was gathering the men he was like a magnet to the women. He was winning, though; he had six women to her five men.

‘I wonder if I might give you a tour of our new computer-room, Mrs Ferris?’ Mr Bidwell asked, bridling with old-fashioned chivalry.

‘I’m sure Mrs Ferris would be more interested in the soccer facilities,’ the gym teacher interrupted, giving his boss a baleful look.

‘Actually,’ Julie said, ‘I’d like to meet Danny’s music teacher—she’s over there talking to Mr Carruthers. If you’ll excuse me, please?’

Giving them all an impartial smile, she crossed the room to the cluster of women around Teal Carruthers. He was openly watching her approach, his expression unreadable. His lightweight trousers and stylish striped shirt were casual clothes in which he should have looked relaxed; he looked, she thought, about as relaxed as a tiger in a cage.

It was an odd image to use of a man so outwardly civilized. She gave him a cool smile, said, ‘Good evening, Mr Carruthers,’ and waited to see how he would respond.

With uncanny precision he echoed her own words. ‘If you’ll excuse me, please?’ he said, flicking a glance around him. Then he took Julie by the elbow and walked her over to a display of books. ‘I see you have the same problem as I do,’ he said.

‘You were one up on me,’ she answered limpidly.

‘But then you’ve only lived here just over a month.’

‘You mean it’s going to get worse?’ Julie said with faint dismay.

Deliberately he looked her up and down, from the smooth, shining fall of her hair to her fine-boned feet in their pretty shoes. ‘Very definitely, I’d say,’ he drawled.

She was quite astute enough to realize he did not mean the words as a compliment. His fingers were still gripping her elbow, digging into her bare skin with unnecessary strength. ‘I’m not going to run away,’ Julie said, and saw with a primitive thrill of triumph that she had finally managed to disrupt his composure.

With a muttered word of apology Teal dropped his hand to his side, furious with himself for that small betrayal: he hadn’t even realized he was still holding on to her. Standing as close to her as he was, it was no trouble to see why any red-blooded male under the age of ninety would be drawn to her, for besides being beautiful she exuded sensuality from every pore.

Her lips were soft and voluptuous, holding an unspoken promise that the imperious tilt of her cheekbones belied, a contrast that could be seen as both challenge and snare. Her body, curved and graceful, bore the same paradoxical blend of untouchability and beckoning. Although her height and slenderness made her as modern-looking as any model, her smile was both mysterious and ageless.

In the kitchen of her house he had wondered what color her eyes were. He now saw that they were neither gray nor blue, but shifting like smoke from one to the other. Chameleon eyes. Fickle eyes, he thought cynically.

‘You don’t like me very much, do you?’ Julie said levelly.

He raised his brow. ‘You believe in speaking your mind.’

‘Life’s short—it saves time.’

The women who pursued him always seemed to be smiling. Julie Ferris was not smiling. Suddenly exhilarated, Teal said, ‘No—actually, I don’t like you.’

Not wanting him to know that his opinion of her had the power to hurt, Julie chose her words with care. ‘I was worried about Danny adjusting to the city and to a new school when we moved here, and I’m very happy that he and Scott are friends. It’s really immaterial whether you and I like each other—but I wouldn’t want our feelings to get in the way of the boys’ friendship.’

‘I’m quite sure we can keep meetings between us at a minimum, Mrs Ferris,’ Teal said, and watched anger spark her eyes with blue.

‘I certainly have no desire to do otherwise.’

‘Then we understand each other,’ he said. ‘Ah, there’s Scott’s homeroom teacher; I must have a word with her about my son’s appalling spelling. Good evening, Mrs Ferris.’

Julie watched him walk away from her. He was not a stupid man; he knew she didn’t like being called Mrs Ferris. He had been needling her on purpose.

He really didn’t like her.

Her thoughts marched on. In her kitchen she had labeled him as the most attractive man she had ever met. Attractive now seemed a flimsy word to describe him, and civilized a totally meretricious word. Sexy would have been more accurate, she thought shakily. Close up, the man projected raw magnetism simply by breathing; he was dynamite. As clearly as if he were still standing in front of her she could see the narrow, strongly boned features, the unfathomable gray eyes and cleanly carved lips. He had a cleft in his chin. His lashes were as black as soot. Not to mention his body...

Julie wriggled her shoulders under her tunic, trying to relax, and began searching the room for the music teacher. Dynamite has a tendency to blow up in your face, she chided herself. Dynamite is deadly. Besides, you were married to a man with charisma and you know darn well where that got you.

Learn from your mistakes, Julie Ferris. Which means, as Mr Teal Carruthers so succinctly phrased it, that you should keep meetings between you and him to a minimum.

An absolute minimum. Like none.

She caught the music teacher’s eye and, smiling, walked across to meet her. Half an hour later, having assiduously avoided the gym teacher, she left the school with Danny and went home. She went to bed early, and woke up the next morning to the delightful knowledge that she had the next two days off. The sun was shining and the birds were singing...wonderful.

After Danny had gone to school, Julie took her coffee on to the porch and sat in the sun with her feet up. She felt very content. She had done the right thing by moving to the city, she knew that now. It had seemed an immensely difficult decision at the time, to leave the old country house where she had lived throughout her marriage; yet increasingly she had wanted more opportunities for Danny than the tiny local school could offer, and her own job at the county hospital had been in jeopardy because of cut-backs.

But there had been more to it than that. Inwardly she had longed to leave the house where she had been so unhappy, a house that had come to represent Robert’s abandonment and betrayal; and she had craved more life, more people, more excitement than weekly bingo games and church socials.

She loved living in the city. On all counts except for the men she was meeting she had more than succeeded in her aims. Although she supposed there were those who would call her date with Wayne exciting.

She finished her coffee and went to two nurseries, loading her little car with flats of pansies and petunias and snapdragons. Home again, she changed into her oldest clothes and got the tools out of the little shed at the back of the garden. The spades and trowels were so clean she almost felt guilty about getting dirt on them. Almost, she thought happily, loosening the soil in one of the geometric beds and randomly starting to dig holes for the transplants. She disliked formal gardens. Too much control.

An hour later the hose was sprawled on the grass in untidy coils, the snapdragons were haphazardly planted among the box-wood, and a fair bit of mud had transferred itself from the beds to Julie’s person. Singing to herself, she began scattering nasturtium seeds along the edges of the bed.

A man’s voice said over the fence, ‘Good morning, Mrs Ferris.’

The only person other than Teal Carruthers to call her Mrs Ferris was her next-door neighbor, a retired brigadier general called Basil Mellanby who lived alone and would not, she was sure, ever make the slightest attempt to date her. ‘Good morning,’ Julie called cheerily. ‘Isn’t it a beautiful day?’

‘Indeed it is.’ He cleared his throat, rather dubiously surveying the results of her labors. ‘I have a measuring stick if you should want to borrow it—just the thing to keep the rows straight.’

His garden was a replica of her landlady’s. ‘I like things messy,’ Julie said apologetically. ‘You don’t think Mrs LeMarchant will mind, do you?’ Mrs LeMarchant was her landlady.

‘I’m sure she won’t,’ the general replied, with more gallantry, Julie suspected, than truth. ‘I had a letter from her today; she’s doing very well in Vermont with her sister.’

And you miss her, thought Julie. ‘How’s her sister getting along since her heart attack?’

The general chatted away for half an hour, then Julie did her best to relieve the rigid straightness of the concrete path to the front door with masses of petunias, watched by Einstein, who also liked digging haphazardly in the garden. Danny came home from school. She made supper and cleaned up the dishes, and when Scott joined them got the two boys to help her wind the hose and hang it on the shed wall. Then she went back in the house to get a drink of juice.

Einstein was crouched on the kitchen floor with a rat under his paws. The rat, she saw with a gasp of pure horror, was not dead.

She backed up slowly, fumbled for the screen door and edged through it. Her hands were shaking so badly she could hardly close the door.

Danny clattered up the steps. ‘We’re going to play cowboys,’ he said and reached for the door.

‘Don’t go in there,’ Julie faltered. ‘Einstein’s caught a rat.’

‘A rat—wow!’

‘It’s not dead,’ she added, wringing her hands. ‘What will I do?’

If she called the general, he’d probably want to blow the rat’s head off with a shotgun; the general had an immoderate fondness for guns. Or else, she thought numbly, remembering the network of tiny veins in his ruddy cheeks, he might have a heart attack like Mrs LeMarchant’s sister. No, she couldn’t ask the general.

‘Aren’t you going to get your holsters, Danny?’ Scott cried, bouncing up the steps.

‘There’s a rat in the house,’ Danny said with evident relish. ‘Mum says it’s not dead. Einstein caught it.’

‘Jeepers...a real rat?’

‘I can’t go in there,’ Julie muttered. ‘I’m being a lousy role model but I’m terrified of rats.’

Scott let out a war-whoop. ‘I’ll get my dad,’ he said; ‘he’ll fix it.’

‘No, you mustn’t—’

‘Let’s go!’ Danny cried, and the two boys took off down the street. The rest of Julie’s protest died on her lips because there was no one there to hear it. The general would have been better than Teal Carruthers, she thought grimly, and looked down at herself. Her sneakers had holes in them, her knees were coated with mud, and her T-shirt had ‘Handel With Care’ emblazoned across her chest under a portrait of the composer. As for her shorts, they should have been thrown out when she moved.

Inside the house Einstein meowed, a long, piercing howl that almost made her feel sorry for the rat. She shuddered. A half-dead rat on the white kitchen tiles could not by any stretch of the imagination be called apple-pie order.

A black car turned into her driveway, pulling up behind her small green Chevette. The boys erupted from it, and in a more leisurely fashion Teal Carruthers climbed out. He too was wearing shorts, designer shorts with brand-new deck shoes and a T-shirt so close-fitting that her stomach, already unsettled, did an uneasy swoop.

‘What seems to be the problem?’ he drawled.

‘There’s a rat in the kitchen,’ she said, and through the open screen heard Einstein howl again.

‘Sure it’s not a mouse?’

In a flash of insight Julie realized what he was implying. The rat, in his view, was nothing but a trumped-up excuse for her to see him again. She was chasing him. Just like all those other women. In a voice tight with rage she said, ‘I once accidentally locked myself in the basement with two live rats. Trust me, Mr Carruthers—this is no mouse.’

Teal picked up a pair of heavy gloves from the back seat and closed the car door. ‘Two meetings in less than twenty-four hours hardly qualifies as minimal,’ he said, climbing the back steps.

‘I didn’t ask you to come here!’ Julie spat. ‘Our two sons did that. As far as I’m concerned you can go straight home and stay there—I’ll ask the brigadier general to come over; I’m sure he’d be delighted to blast his way through my house with a shotgun.’

‘I’m here now; I might as well have a look,’ Teal said. With a twinge of remorse he saw that she was genuinely pale, her hands shaking with the lightest of tremors. Mouse or rat, she’d had a fright.

She was wearing those goddamned shorts again.

‘Can we come, Dad?’ Scott begged.

‘No, you stay out here...I won’t be long.’

The two boys glued themselves to the screen door, peering through to see what was happening. Julie leaned back against the railing, taking a couple of deep breaths to calm herself, every nerve on edge. She jumped as Einstein emitted an uncouth shriek expressive of extreme displeasure. Two minutes later Teal pushed open the door, the rat dangling from one gloved hand. ‘Have you got a shovel?’ he said. ‘I’ll bury it for you.’

‘I’ll get it,’ Danny said eagerly. ‘Can we have a proper funeral?’

Teal took one look at Julie’s face; she was backed up against the railing as far as she could go, cringing from the dead animal in his hand. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said drily, and started down the steps.

Julie stayed where she was. Her knees were trembling and she had no desire to go inside and face Einstein’s wrath. The last time she and Robert had been together, two rats had gotten in the basement of their house. Robert had laughed at her fears, neglected to set traps and announced that he was divorcing her for another woman. Two days after he had gone back to New York the latch at the top of the basement stairs—which she had twice asked him to mend—had trapped her in the basement. She had been there for four hours, along with the rats, until Danny had come home from school and released her. Even thinking about it made her feel sick.

When Teal came back, she was still standing there. He said tersely, ‘Have you got any brandy?’ She shook her head. ‘Get in the car and we’ll go over to my place—you could do with a good stiff drink.’

He was scarcely bothering to disguise the reluctance in his voice. ‘Oh, no—no, thanks,’ Julie said. ‘I’ll be fine now that I know the rat’s not in the house any more.’

Teal gave an impatient sigh. If he had the slightest sense he’d leave right now. She was a grown woman, and definitely not his responsibility. He heard himself saying, ‘Scott, go over to the house and bring back the brandy, will you? The dark green bottle with the black label. Put it in a paper bag and don’t forget to lock the door again.’

‘C’mon, Danny,’ Scott yelled, throwing his leg over the seat of his bicycle. ‘Let’s pretend we’re ambulance drivers.’

Wailing like banshees, the two boys disappeared from sight. ‘I wish you’d go, too,’ Julie said raggedly. ‘You don’t want to be here any more than I want you here.’

A lot of Teal’s work dealt with the shady areas of half-truths and outright lies; he found Julie Ferris’s honesty oddly refreshing. ‘You look as though you’re either going to faint or be sick,’ he said. ‘Or both. And I have to clean up your kitchen floor. Let’s go inside.’ Hoping it was not obvious how little he wanted to touch her, he took her by the arm. She was trembling very lightly and her skin was cold, and he felt a swift, unexpected surge of compassion. More gently he said, ‘You need to sit down, Julie.’

Tears suddenly flooded her eyes, tears she was too proud to show him. She ducked her head, fighting them back, and made for the door. As she stumbled into the kitchen Einstein pushed between her legs in his haste to get outside. Teal grabbed her arm again. ‘Careful—where in hell’s teeth did you get that cat? It’s got worse manners than an eight-year-old boy.’

‘He got us—he was a stray,’ she said with a watery grin directed at the vicinity of his chest, and sat down hard in the nearest chair. She averted her eyes while Teal wiped the floor with wet paper towel, by which time Scott had returned with a brown paper bag which he plunked on the counter. The brandy was exceedingly expensive. She gulped some down and began to feel better.

Teal topped up her glass and stood up to go. ‘Call me if there’s a replay,’ he said wryly. ‘It makes a change from legal briefs.’

The boys had gone outside. Julie stood up as well, and perhaps it was the brandy that loosened her tongue. ‘Do you think I faked all this just to get you over here?’ she asked. ‘One more woman who’s hot in pursuit?’

‘You don’t miss much, do you?’

‘As a lawyer you deal with people under one kind of stress—as a nurse I deal with them under another. Either way, after a while you get so you can read people.’

Teal looked at her in silence. There was a little color back in her cheeks, and the tears that she had tried to hide from him were gone. He said slowly, ‘It would be very egotistical of me to assume that you’re pursuing me.’

‘Indeed it would,’ she said agreeably.

‘You really are scared of rats.’

‘Terrified.’

‘Tell me why.’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘That’s personal stuff.’

He felt a tiny, illogical flicker of anger. ‘No, I don’t think you’re pursuing me,’ he said. ‘Despite the message on your T-shirt.’

Julie had forgotten about ‘Handel with Care’. She flushed scarlet, the mere thought of Teal Carruthers touching her breasts filling her with confusion. ‘It’s the only dark-colored shirt I’ve got,’ she babbled. ‘I always seem to cover myself in mud when I garden.’

‘I noticed that... I’m going to round Scott up; I’ve got a couple of hours’ work to do tonight. Goodnight, Julie Ferris.’

She said awkwardly but with undoubted sincerity, ‘Thank you very much for killing the rat.’

He suddenly smiled, a smile that brought his whole face to life so that it crackled with vitality. It was as though a different man stood in front of her, a much younger man, unguarded and free. A very sexual man, Julie thought uneasily, and took a step back.

‘Just call me St George,’ he said. ‘Take care.’

Julie was still rooted to the floor when Danny came in a few minutes later. ‘Einstein’s sulking,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He growled at me when I tried to pat him.’

‘I think we’ll leave him outside for now,’ she said with a reminiscent shiver. ‘Shower night, Danny,’ she added, and braced herself for the usual protests; Danny had an aversion to hot water and soap. Her best friend in the country had teenage sons who she claimed almost lived in the shower. Some days Julie could hardly wait.

* * *

On Saturday Julie turned down a date with the gym teacher, was extremely short with Wayne when he phoned, and went out for dinner with Morse MacLeod, one of the anaesthetists on staff. His wife had left him five months ago, a situation which could only fill Julie with sympathy. But Morse was so immersed in misery that he had no interest in hearing her own rather similar story; all he wanted was large doses of commiseration along with complete agreement that his wife’s behavior had been unfair, inhuman and castrating. By the time he took her home Julie’s store of sympathy was long gone. She was a dinner-date, not a therapist, she thought, closing the door behind Morse with a sigh of relief. But at least he hadn’t jumped on her.

School ended. Danny and Scott added a new room to the tree house and Julie had to increase the hours of her sitter. The surgeon who had invited her to go sailing on his yacht at Mahone Bay, an expedition she had looked forward to, turned out to be married; his protestations about his open marriage and about her old-fashioned values did not impress her.

Her next date was with a male nurse from Oncology, a single parent like herself. His idea of a night out was to take her home to meet his three young children, involve her in preparing supper and getting them to bed, and, once they were asleep, regale her with pitiful stories of how badly they needed a mother. Then as Julie sat on the couch innocently drinking lukewarm coffee he suddenly threw himself on her to demonstrate how badly he needed a wife. Julie fled.

Driving home, her blouse pulled out of her waistband, her lipstick smeared, she made herself a promise. She was on night duty the following Saturday. But if that film she’d yet to see was still playing the week after that, she was going to see it all by herself. No more dates. No more men who saw her as a potential mother or an instant mistress. One bed partner, made to order, she thought vengefully. Just add water and stir. Did men honestly think women were flattered to be mauled on the very first date?

A traffic light turned red and she pulled to a halt. Not one of the men she had dated since she had moved to Halifax had been at all interested in her as a person, she realized with painful truth. They never got beyond her face and her body. Was the fault hers? Was she giving off the wrong signals? Picking the wrong men? Or was she, as the surgeon had implied, simply hopelessly old-fashioned?

The light turned green. She shifted gears, suddenly aching to be in her own house, Danny asleep upstairs, Einstein curled up on the chesterfield. She knew who she was there. Liked who she was. And if she was retreating from reality, so be it. She was thoroughly disenchanted with the dating game.

* * *

The Saturday after the rat episode Teal had dinner with Janine. He had met her at a cocktail party at the law school, and had then made the mistake of inviting her to the annual dinner and dance given by his firm of solicitors. It was considered bad form to go to the dinner without a partner, and he had rather liked her. Unfortunately she had fallen head over heels in love with him.

He was not the slightest bit in love with her, had never made a move to take her to bed, and once he had realized how she felt had actively discouraged her. All to no avail. Bad enough that she was phoning him at home with distressing frequency. She had now taken to bothering him at work. So tonight he was going to end it, once and for all. It was the kindest thing to do.

Great way to spend a Saturday night, he thought, knotting his tie in the mirror. But she was young. She’d get over it. She’d come to realize, as everyone did sooner or later, that love wasn’t always what it cracked up to be.

Would he ever forget—or forgive himself—that on the very day Elizabeth had died they’d had an argument? Something to do with Scott, something silly and trivial. But the hasty words he’d thrown at her could never be retracted.

Irritably he shrugged into his summerweight jacket. He should pin a button to his lapel: ‘Not Available’. ‘Once Burned, Twice Shy’. Would that discourage all these women who seemed to think he was fair game?

This evening Janine had offered to cook dinner for him. He kept the conversation firmly on impersonal matters throughout the meal, told her as gently as he could that he didn’t want to hear from her again, and patiently dealt with her tears and arguments. He was home by ten. Thoroughly out of sorts, he paid the sitter and poured himself a glass of brandy.

Swishing it around the glass, absently watching the seventh inning of a baseball game on television, he found himself remembering Julie Ferris. Her fear of rats had reduced her to tears. But she had hated crying in front of him, and would be, he was almost sure, totally averse to using tears as a weapon. Unlike Janine. But then, unlike Janine, Julie Ferris wasn’t in love with him. She didn’t even like him.

He hadn’t been strictly truthful when he had said he didn’t like her. He did like her honesty.

His hands clenched around the glass as he remembered other things: the sunlight glinting in the shining weight of her hair; the way she had trembled at the sight of the rat; her incredibly long legs and the fullness of her breasts under the mud-stained T-shirt that said ‘Handel with Care’.

His body stirred to life. With an exclamation of disgust he changed the channel to a rerun of Platoon and immersed himself in its claustrophobic tale of war and death.

He was going to stay away from Julie Ferris.

And for two weeks he did just that. But he wasn’t always as successful at keeping her out of his thoughts. At a barbecue in Mike’s back yard a young woman called Carole attached herself to him, agreeing with everything he said, laughing sycophantically at all his jokes; Julie’s level gaze and caustic tongue were never far from Teal’s mind. Then Marylee and Bruce, two of his oldest and most cherished friends, invited him to spend the day at their summer cottage on the Northumberland Strait.

‘Can I ask Danny?’ Scott said immediately. ‘We could go swimming and play tennis, hey, Dad?’

‘No,’ Teal said, the reply out of his mouth before he even had time to think about it.

‘Why not?’ Scott wailed.

Teal didn’t know why. Because he didn’t want to explain to Bruce and Marylee who Danny was? Because he didn’t want to phone Julie and tell her about the outing? Because he didn’t want to feel that he should ask her as well?

Knowing he was prevaricating and not liking himself very much for doing it, Teal said, ‘We can’t go everywhere with Danny, son. And his mother might not like us driving all that distance and being late home. Maybe another time.’

Scott stuck his lower lip out and ran up the stairs, slamming the door to his room. Teal raked his fingers through his hair. He should discipline Scott for his behavior. But somehow he didn’t have the heart to do so.

Logically, Julie Ferris was exactly the woman he should be taking with him to the cottage. She wasn’t interested in him. She wouldn’t be phoning him all the time or trying to give him presents he didn’t want. She wouldn’t be doing her best to entice him into her bed.

Restlessly he prowled around the room, picking up the scattered pages of the newspaper and a dirty coffee-mug. So why wasn’t he phoning her and suggesting that she and Danny accompany them? It would be a foursome. Quite safe.

Like a family, he thought, standing stock-still on the carpet. A husband and a wife and their two children.

No wonder he wasn’t picking up the telephone—the picture he had conjured up hit much too close to home. But there was no way he could explain to Scott the real reason why Danny and Julie Ferris couldn’t go with them.

The cottage on a sunny afternoon in July was an extremely pleasant place to be. Scott was playing in the swimming-pool with Sara and Jane, Bruce and Marylee’s two daughters, while the adults lay on the deck overlooking the blue waters of the strait, drinking rum fizzes and gossiping lazily about some of their colleagues, one of whom was having a torrid affair with a female member of parliament. Marylee, a brunette with big green eyes, said casually, ‘Are you involved with anyone, Teal?’ As he shook his head she tilted her sunhat back the better to see his face. ‘It’s two years since Elizabeth died...isn’t it time?’

Glad that his dark glasses were hiding his eyes, Teal said fliply, ‘Nope.’

Reflectively she extracted a slice of orange from her glass and chewed on it. ‘Even if you don’t want to get involved, that’s no reason to eschew female company.’

‘I don’t,’ he said, stung. ‘Next Friday I’m going to a medical convention dance with a surgeon who’s definitely female.’ He had wondered if Julie Ferris might also be going. But he wasn’t going to share that with Marylee.

Wrinkling her tip-tilted nose, Marylee said, ‘And I bet you five dollars that’ll be your first and last date with the surgeon.’

‘I’m not interested in another relationship,’ Teal said tightly.

‘You must have lots of offers.’

‘Too many.’

‘Well, you’re a very sexy man,’ she said seriously. Bruce, stretched out beside her, gave a snort of laughter. Ignoring him, she added, ‘Plus you’re a good father and a fine lawyer—you have integrity.’

Embarrassed, Teal said comically, ‘I don’t think the women are chasing me because of my integrity.’

‘It’s your body and your bank account—in that order,’ Bruce put in.

‘Stop joking, you two,’ Marylee said severely. ‘Grief is all very well, Teal, but Scott needs a mother. And it’s not natural for you to live like a monk.’

Grief Teal could handle. It was the rest he couldn’t. ‘I’m not ready for any kind of commitment, Marylee,’ he said, getting up from his chair and stretching the tension from his body. ‘Who’s going for a swim?’

‘Men,’ Marylee sniffed. ‘I’ll never understand them if I live to be a hundred.’

Bruce pulled her to her feet. ‘You shouldn’t bother your pretty little head over us, baby doll,’ he leered. ‘Barefoot and pregnant, that’s your role in life.’

‘Men have been divorced for less than that,’ Marylee said darkly, then giggled as Bruce swept her off her feet with a passionate kiss.

Teal looked away, conscious of a peculiar ache in his belly. Although Bruce and Marylee had been through some struggles in their marriage, he would stake his life that the marriage was sound. Yet it hurt something deep within him to witness the love they shared.

Love...that most enigmatic and elusive of emotions.

No wonder he didn’t want to get involved, he thought, and headed for the pool.

CHAPTER THREE

JULIE FERRIS was on Teal’s mind again the following Friday when he and Dr Deirdre Reid entered the banquet hall in the hotel. He found himself searching the crowd for a crown of gleaming blonde hair, and didn’t know whether he was disappointed or relieved when he couldn’t find the tall, strikingly beautiful woman who was the mother of his son’s best friend. His companion said something to him, then tugged at the sleeve of his tuxedo. ‘Who are you looking for?’

‘It’s always interesting to see how many people I know at affairs like this,’ he said vaguely. ‘Do you have any idea where we’re sitting?’

‘At the head table—I told you I’m the president of the local association,’ Deirdre said briskly, and began threading her way through the throng of people.

Grinning to himself, not at all surprised that they were at the head table, Teal followed. One reason he’d accepted Deirdre’s invitation was because he didn’t think there was any danger she’d fall in love with him; Deirdre Reid’s emotions were very much under control. If indeed she had any. There were times when her acerbic sense of humor made him wonder. But she was good company, intelligent and well-informed politically.

He was introduced to a great many medical pundits on the way to the head table, where the meal was interjected with speeches, all fortunately brief, some very witty. But it was not until the dancing began in the next room that he saw the woman he had subconsciously been searching for all evening.

Julie Ferris. She was jiving with a tall, strikingly good-looking young man. She danced as if there were no tomorrow, every movement imbued with grace, joyous in a way that made his throat close. Her unselfconscious pleasure seemed to embody something he had lost—if indeed he had ever had it. He said, without having thought out the question at all, ‘Who’s the tall guy with the red hair?’

Deirdre followed his gaze. With a malicious smile she said, ‘The youngest and most brilliant specialist on staff—neurosurgery—and the worst womanizer. Why do you ask?’

‘I know the woman he’s with.’

Deirdre said dismissively, ‘He’ll be bedding her before the night’s out, I’m sure. She’s rather pretty, isn’t she? Shall we dance?’

So Julie Ferris liked sex. As much as the women who chased him. She just had a different man in mind; he, Teal, had not turned her on. Turning his back on her, he whirled Deirdre in a circle and began to dance.

The band was excellent and the wine had flowed freely during the meal. The crowd ebbed and flowed, the laughter ever louder, the colors of the women’s dresses as bright as summer flowers, but not, Teal thought sardonically, as innocent. Smoothly he traversed the dance-floor, Deirdre following his every move with a clockwork precision. The waltz ended. Julie and her partner were standing not ten feet away from them, the neurosurgeon’s hand placed familiarly low on her hip. Teal said clearly, ‘Hello, Julie.’

Her head swung round. ‘Teal...I noticed you were here,’ she said, and removed the doctor’s hand.

‘I’d like you to meet Dr Deirdre Reid,’ Teal said. ‘Julie Ferris, Deirdre...her son and mine are friends.’

‘Dr Reid and I have already met,’ Julie said coolly, her smile perfunctory.

‘Ferris?’ Deirdre repeated with equal coolness. ‘Oh, of course, Men’s Surgical. I didn’t recognize you out of uniform; all nurses look alike to me.’ She smiled up at Julie’s partner. ‘Hello, Nick, how are you? Teal Carruthers...Dr Nicholas Lytton.’

The young neurosurgeon had very pale blue eyes, and Teal disliked him on sight. As the band struck up a slow foxtrot, he said, ‘Dance with me, Julie?’

The twin patches of scarlet in her cheeks matched her outfit—a silk dinner-suit with a flounced neckline and glittering buttons; her hair was upswept on her crown, elaborate gold earrings swaying from her lobes. ‘Thank you,’ she said, and moved into his arms.

While the color in her cheeks could have stemmed from Deirdre’s rudeness, Teal thought that more probably it was in anticipation of ending the night in the neurosurgeon’s bed. She felt very different from Deirdre in his embrace, her body lissome, utterly in tune with the languorous, sensual music. He led her through a complicated turn and said, ‘You know you’re dating the worst womanizer in the entire hospital?’

Her head jerked up. Her eyes, he saw, were sparked blue with temper. ‘Who told you that?’

‘Deirdre.’

‘Is she speaking from personal experience?’

Teal gave a choked laugh. ‘It’s not like you to be bitchy.’

‘You have no idea what I’m like.’

The question forced itself past his lips. ‘Are you going to bed with him, Julie?’

‘Really, Teal, what kind of a question is that?’

‘A fairly straightforward one, I would have thought.’

‘You’re not in court—this is no place for a cross-examination,’ she said, and her lips—very kissable lips—compressed in a way that made his hands tighten their hold. ‘Don’t grab me,’ she added crossly.

‘Why not? Because I’m not a brilliant neurosurgeon, just a lawyer, and they’re a dime a dozen?’

‘Boy, you’re sure spoiling for a fight, aren’t you? Not that I’m surprised. Three hours of Dr Reid would put a saint in a bad mood.’

‘She’s an intelligent and attractive woman.’

‘So are you going to bed with her, Teal?’ she parried nastily.

‘No,’ he announced. ‘Why was she so rude to you?’

‘On my last shift she yelled at me in front of several interns and two other doctors for a mistake I hadn’t made. When I pointed out her error, she declined to apologize.’ Julie sniffed. ‘She treats patients like collections of removable organs and nurses like dirt.’

Somehow Teal had no trouble believing every word Julie had just said. ‘Then we agree about something,’ he remarked.

‘What’s that?’ she asked suspiciously.

‘Neither of us likes the other’s choice of a date.’

‘You have no reason to dislike Nick,’ she flashed.

He remembered the hand sliding down her hip and said curtly, ‘Danny deserves better of you than someone like Nick.’

‘Danny’s got nothing to do with it!’

‘So you don’t take your men home when you go to bed with them? How discreet of you,’ he sneered, recognizing with a distant part of his brain that he was behaving reprehensibly.

‘What have you got against me, Teal?’ Julie demanded. ‘You’ve disliked me from the minute we met.’

You’re beautiful and full of life and you’re driving me crazy...

For a horrible moment Teal thought he had spoken the words out loud. ‘Just don’t expose my son to your love life—that’s an order,’ he said coldly. ‘He likes you and I wouldn’t want him thinking promiscuity is acceptable adult behavior.’

‘I promise that when I stand on a street corner soliciting it won’t be your street,’ she snapped. ‘It’s beyond me how you have such a nice son! Since—like most men—you’re totally wrapped up in your job, I can only presume that your wife brought Scott up.’

She felt Teal’s instant response through her fingers: a tightening of his shoulder muscles, a rigidity in his spine. ‘Leave my wife out of this,’ he grated. ‘She’s none of your business and never will be. And now I’d better hand you back to Nick, hadn’t I? I wouldn’t want the two of you to waste any time.’

As the saxophone whispered its last chords and the dancers clapped he led her toward the other couple. ‘Yours, I believe,’ he said to Nick, and smiled rather more warmly than he had intended at Deirdre. ‘Why don’t we take a break and get a drink?’ he suggested, and without a backward look threaded his way off the dance-floor.

There were two other couples that Teal knew at the bar, and they got into a ribald discussion on senate reform. An hour later when he and Deirdre went back to the ballroom, there was no sign of Nick and Julie.

They’ve gone to his place, Teal thought viciously, and wondered why in God’s name it mattered to him. Almost as though she’d read his mind Deirdre said, ‘Why don’t we go to my apartment for a nightcap, Teal? I’ve just about had enough of this.’ So he wouldn’t mistake her meaning, she traced his lower lip with her finger, her eyes a mingling of mockery and seduction.

He removed her hand. ‘I’m not into casual sex, Deirdre.’

‘It’s the only kind worth having.’

‘Not for me...sorry.’

‘I could change your mind.’

He gave her a smile every bit as mocking as her own. ‘Haven’t you heard that no means no?’

‘What a liberated man you are, Teal,’ she responded, with no intent to flatter. ‘Tell the truth—if I were Julie Ferris, no would mean yes. Because you’d rather be standing in Nick’s shoes than your own right now. Not that I can imagine Nick’s still wearing his shoes.’

Teal felt a surge of pure fury. Battling it down, he said, ‘I’ll take you home.’ And I won’t go out with you again, he thought. Thank you very much.

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