"Did your mother buy that suit for you?"
"I had Patty ship some of my things Monday. They arrived this morning or I would have been wearing my Dad's clothes." He glanced past her, down the stairs toward the door of Lyle's suite. "I don't see Lyle's truck. Has he been home?"
"I haven't seen him all day."
"Good. Ready to go?"
"Why is that good?"
"No reason. Let's go."
"You're not here to tell me the dinner is cancelled?"
"No, I'm bumming a ride. I let Cliff Cedric talk me into turning in my rental and test driving one of his lease-backs. It won't start."
"Oh." She didn't want to give him a lift. Being alone with him was difficult.
Especially when his gaze went down her front and came back with the kind of masculine appreciation that asked, Is this for me?
She tightened her grip on the edge of the door. "Something more formal would be better, right?"
"Hell no. You look great." He sent another leisurely look down the body-hugging black silk knit and frilled V-collar that ended between her breasts. "Let's go."
"I still need shoes and lipstick."
His gaze went to her mouth. He started to say something, shook his head, grinned with self-mockery.
"What?" she asked as she went to the closet to find the heeled sandals she'd left in a box when she'd moved back here.
"Never mind."
"Just tell me." She ignored the fading tenderness in the bottom of her one foot as she tugged on the shoes.
Sterling stepped into the house and shut the door behind him. "I was going to tell you not to wear any."
She was already in front of the small mirror on the landing, the tube in her hand. "Why?"
"Because I don't like the taste."
Boom, boom, boom, went her heart.
"Forget who you were with again?" Shakily, she painted her lips, looked at the finished product, decided she would do.
He only held the door for her, that stupid conversation about high school crushes right there on the front stoop again.
"That dress needs a license," he told her as she locked the door.
"It's a good dress, isn't it? I always get compliments. Are you going to be macho about driving?"
"Not if you'd rather."
"I'm using Dad's car while Lyle fixes mine."
Sterling held the driver's door on the '66 Wildcat for her. When they were both seated, he nudged the box of papers in the middle of the bench seat. "Your mobile office is bigger'n my real one. You know, I may ask to drive on the way back. I've never piloted a vehicle this size. What do you need? Locomotive training?"
"That's only if you're towing a load. Cruise ship captain is sufficient for a short distance like this."
"The double-bed in the back seat is a most interesting feature. What else do we have?" He took an inventory. "You could cook on this lighter, and here's the walk-in closet- Hello. This gives a whole new meaning to glove box. Are these yours?"
"Dad's," she said, blushing at his finding the condoms. "He has them stashed everywhere. Above the coffee pot, in the medicine chest. He's a man with a healthy appetite."
"Would that be a family trait?"
What could she say? Deep down, she suspected it was, but she'd always thought of it as a weakness to be resisted.
"Pleading the fifth? Let's have some music." He fiddled with the radio.
Settling on a crooner, he leaned back with his arm along the seat back, his hand above her shoulder. She waited for the heat of his touch, practically felt her cells gathering and reaching out to find his fingertips, like the crackle of ions before a lightning strike.
It was the longest drive of her life, getting to the Liebe Falls Par Three Golf Course. They had to park back from the clubhouse, on account of the lawn bowling drawing a big crowd. As luck would have it-bad-she pulled into the parking space two over from Sterling's parents, drawing a shocked look from his mother and an annoyed one from Walter as they all climbed from their vehicles.
"I want to talk to you," Walter said in his ominous baritone to Sterling.
"Is there something wrong with your rental? You should have called. We'll drive you home," Evelyn said.
"And break Paige's heart on our first date?" Sterling said, making his mother stiffen.
Oh, he was evil.
"You're not funny," Paige muttered as they followed his mother's stalk to the entrance where she stood and waited for Walter to open the door for her.
"I'm not trying to be. This is mortal combat. Watch. She'll have set me up with someone."
"So fight your own battles. Quit using me. I don't like it."
"But you're so effective," he said, hand at the small of her back moving in a cajoling little caress. It felt good, but her stomach tightened.
"Because they hate me, Sterling. You don't need to fuel that fire." She shrugged off his touch, trying not to walk into the clubhouse with a bitch face on, but honestly.
"Hey," he said, tone apologetic, hand grazing her arm.
The smell of greasy food hit with the loud ripple of conversation.
"Have you been here before?" she asked, changing the topic so they didn't have to talk about things that made her feel small.
"Hundreds of times. Don't tell me you haven't?" He frowned with disbelief.
"Never." She fought rubber-necking at the wagon-wheel chandeliers. All her life she'd waited for an invitation to a wedding or something here. She had always had the impression it was how the beautiful in-crowd lived. Apparently the beautiful in-crowd had the taste of a bordello madam.
"Not even for prom?" Sterling spoke through a stiff smile as he nodded at someone across the room. "Because we just walked into ours. We went to school with half these people."
She looked around the room of familiar faces, most of them turning to stare at her and Sterling. She was horribly conscious of his hot hand coming to rest against her spine again. "And don't they love to stare. Can you remember any names?"
"All of them," Sterling said with confidence.
Why, oh, why couldn't she be as cool as he was?
"But it's still going to be a fucking nightmare. Don't leave my side."
She laughed, relieved, and leaned into his bolstering hand.
Chapter Fourteen
Sterling steered Paige behind his parents, distracted by her accusation that he was using her against them. He hadn't seen it from her perspective and now he felt like a shit. They didn't really hate her. His mother had never met a man, woman or child she couldn't find fault with. Paige shouldn't take that personally.
But he shouldn't use her as a shield.
Not unless he was willing to really stand behind her.
"Oh," his mother said as they arrived at a table. "I asked Myrna to save us seats, but I didn't expect...."
Paige, Sterling mentally finished. Of course she hadn't. And look at that, Myrna's daughter was sitting next to the empty seat meant for him. Her blond hair was banded back from her face the way she'd worn it in high school, when their mothers had regularly tried to set them up. She glanced at Sterling with a smile on her glossed lips. It faded into a mortified ‘O' when she saw Paige beside him.
"Not a problem. I'll sit somewhere else." Paige had all the give of a mahogany headboard. If he let her slip away, he'd bet real money she would sit in her father's car all the way back to her childhood home.
"Bring a chair from another table," he suggested.
"That will upset the place settings."
"We won't be fined, Mother."
Sterling's father nudged Sterling's arm. "About what happened today between you and L-"
"Hey, there are two seats with the Becks." Sterling gave Paige a gentle shove. "Hurry before they're taken."
"You don't have to sit with me." She spoke over her shoulder as he maneuvered her between the tables, making it sound like she would rather he didn't.
He herded her across the room with determination. He couldn't let her hear what his father had almost said. Odds were good Paige's reaction would not reassure the crowd that everything was stable and full-steam-ahead at Roy Furnishings.
Paige's tense expression softened as they approached the table occupied by Britta's parents. Mrs. Beck greeted Paige with a hug. Mr. Beck kissed her cheek.
Sterling seated her, asked what she'd like to drink, and left the women discussing Olinda's dried flower party last night while he caught up to his father in the line-up for the bar.
"You threatened Lyle's job today," his father said.
Conversation here was too loud for anyone to notice his father was putting on his fetch-a-switch-and-meet-me-in-the-shed voice.
"I read everyone the riot act about fire hazards yesterday, after I found that cigarette in Paige's office. Today Lyle was welding without so much as a glass of water handy. Telling him to follow procedure or find somewhere else to work is not a threat. It's an order."