2 On the Nickel (11 page)

I held my breath in horror.

Those were the very words my
ex-husband flung in my face when I’d uncovered the evidence of his affair.
Jonette was the only person I had ever told, and she’d said not to believe a
word from a man who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. How would Rafe take my
unfortunate remark?

Maybe there are no accidents in
life. Part of me feared Rafe would agree with Charlie. That part had taken over
my brain and acted stupid. Blood roared through my ears.

Would I eat Christmas pizza after
all? Visions of pepperoni snowmen dancing on a field of gooey mozzarella cheese
bounded by a lake of Christmas green tomato sauce and thick ropes of red dough
flitted through my head. My empty stomach rumbled.

Rafe laughed heartily, tucked his
hand under my arm and steered me down the gravel driveway toward his fire-engine
red convertible. His lips nuzzled my ear, sending feverish chills down my
spine. “Red, you can control me in the bedroom anytime you like.”

I grinned. If Rafe thought I was
hell-on-wheels in the bedroom, who was I to correct him? “Count on it. But
it’ll cost you a candlelight dinner.”

His powerful car growled beneath me as we drove up the mountain. The smell of oiled leather and virile man filled my senses.
Anticipation pulsed through my veins. I could get used to this. Oh yeah, very
used to this.

As I sailed into the Boar’s Head
on Rafe’s arm, I felt like a million dollars. But on the way to our table, I
spotted Evan and Eleanor Hodges, and my heart went out to them.

Years of Mama drilling manners in
my head wouldn’t allow me to pass them without a brief word. I inclined my head
towards the siblings. “Hello, Evan. Eleanor. Have you met Rafe Golden?”

“I’ve seen you out at the club,”
Rafe said easily to Evan, shaking his hand. Rafe smiled brightly at Eleanor. “How
do you do, ma’am?”

Jealousy screeched in my head as
bright flags of red appeared on Eleanor’s pale cheeks. She wasn’t lushly
sensual, but she looked attractive in her ice-blue suit and stylishly coiffed
short blond hair. Her innate royal bearing was no doubt due to the pure,
undiluted blue blood flowing through her veins. I couldn’t compete with Eleanor
academically, socially, or even superficially.

I’m sure her brain ticked off my
failings in crisp text bullets like a lecturing professor’s overhead slide.
Poor lineage. Unpolished appearance. Inferior brain. Sure enough, Eleanor
dismissed me in a single glance.

On the other hand, Rafe held her
undivided attention. Her gaze widened as she gave him the same analytical assessment she had given me. Her thoughts about him probably ran along the lines
of excellent conformation, well dressed, and well spoken.

I cleared my throat delicately. “You
have my deepest sympathy.”

Eleanor’s gaze shuttered. “Mother’s
death will be deeply felt throughout the community. She was tireless in her
devotion to Hogan’s Glen.”

She said the words to Rafe, as if
this was their private conversation. Enough of that. I stepped between them. “How
long will you be in town, Eleanor?”

Annoyance flashed through her
perfect blue eyes as I blocked her view. “As long as it takes to settle
Mother’s affairs.”

Those unpaid bills at the beauty
shop came to my mind. Eleanor could be stuck here longer than she realized. “What
about your practice? Won’t your patients need you?”

“Due to the circumstances, I
transferred my immediate surgeries to a colleague.”

“Eleanor founded Crandall Brain
Clinic,” I explained to Rafe. “She’s a brain surgeon down in D.C.”

“Not just any brain surgeon,”
Evan piped in, his voice full of brotherly pride. “Eleanor won the prestigious
LeClair Award for three years running. She’s the best there is.”

Eleanor glowed under his praise.

My hands curled into tight fists.

I had accomplishments, too.

Two healthy children.

My accounting business.

Friends.

I’d bet Eleanor didn’t have a
single friend. And since she was pushing forty, her window of opportunity for
having children had probably passed.

So there. I didn’t have to feel
inferior next to Eleanor Hodges. I had kids. She didn’t.

“I’ll keep that in mind if I ever
need brain surgery,” Rafe said, applying gentle pressure to my lower back with
his hand.

“If you’ll follow me,” the hostess said mercifully.

I’d forgotten about the hostess
and everyone else in the restaurant who was listening to our conversation. Good
thing I’d kept my reproductive bragging to myself. “Sure.”

Rafe ordered a bottle of wine
when were seated in a private alcove. Classical music flowed softly around our
little island. Once the wine had been opened, tasted, and we were alone again,
he asked, “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

“What?” I sipped my wine slowly,
savoring the excellent vintage.

“You can’t fool me, Cleo. I saw the claws come out. What is it with you and that woman?”

Years of slights and insults simmered beneath my surface. Every female of my generation had stood in Eleanor’s long shadow. I
didn’t know how everyone else felt, but her achievements had always stuck in my
craw. I thought I’d gotten over it.

I was wrong.

I would be irritated with perfect
Eleanor until my dying day. “You can’t fully appreciate the problem of Eleanor
Hodges if you didn’t grow up here.”

Rafe leaned back in his chair. “Try
me.”

I knew better, but ancient wrongs
tumbled out of my mouth. “Eleanor was the Virgin Mary in the church Christmas
pageant four years in a row.”

“So?”

“Mary was a highly coveted role.
I wanted to be Mary, so did the other girls at Trinity Episcopal, but none of
us radiated serenity and distinction like Eleanor did. She hogged the limelight.”

Rafe arched an eyebrow. “This
happened how many years ago?”

I downed a gulp of wine. “It’s
not something you forget.” More stuff from the past percolated up and I let it
out. “Eleanor never missed a day of school or Sunday school. Perfect attendance
for twelve years. Who does that? No one. She even got a special commendation from the governor.”

“I can see how that might be
annoying.”

“No kidding.” I leaned forward in
my chair. “Those straight teeth of hers? A product of her flawless bloodlines.
I wore braces and so did most the kids in this town. Not Eleanor. And she was
never sick. Not once. Can you believe that?”

Rafe grinned.

“Where was I? Perfect attendance.
Perfect health.” I ticked the accolades off on my fingers. “Perfect grades.” I
rolled my eyes. “Every teacher I ever had rhapsodized about Eleanor the Wonder
Student. I can’t tell you how annoying that was.”

I went to take another sip of my
wine and realized the glass was empty. Rafe moved to refill my glass, but I
stilled his hand and drank water instead. Eleanor’s supremacy wouldn’t ruin my
evening.

I buttered a slice of warm
sourdough bread and munched on that. “I’m sure you noticed how pretty she is.
That flawless complexion. Not one zit, ever. How fair is that?”

“Not fair at all.” Rafe reached
for the warm bread. “Your complaints against this woman are that she’s pretty,
smart, and healthy?”

“And she hogged the Virgin Mary
role for years.”

Rafe’s eyes twinkled again. “How
could I forget that? She’s pretty, smart, healthy, and saintly?”

I sighed. “It sounds small-minded
when you put it that way. God knows I’ve tried to rise above the smallness of
it all, but Eleanor isn’t easy to like. She looked down her nose at the rest of
us mere mortals for years. Seeing her tonight brought those buried memories to the surface.”

“You hate her?”

Classical music swelled through
the candlelight room. I had a belly full of wine and bread. And my date was
hanging on my every word. Life was good. “I don’t hate her. I don’t hate
anybody. I’m much more comfortable being far out of Eleanor’s orbit.”

I felt so good about all this
honesty that I went one step further. “And for the record, I didn’t like the
way she was sizing you up.”

“Ah.” Rafe stroked his chin.
Without warning, he stretched, his long legs invading the space on my side of
the table, his feet tangling with mine. “For the record, I like my women to have fire in them. I’m not the Ice Maiden type.”

Warmth flooded my face. I didn’t
much like being one of his women. I wanted to be the only woman in his life.
But there was a silver lining here. He didn’t want Eleanor. I leaned forward
conspiratorially. “You think she’s frigid?”

Rafe’s eyes sparkled in the low
light. “Definitely.”

“Interesting. I would have
thought she’d be perfect in that way, too.”

“Not hardly.”

“How do you know?”

Rafe shrugged. “A man knows these
things.”

Our salads arrived, and the
waiter refilled our wine glasses. This wasn’t turning out to be the romantic
dinner I had envisioned. Time to get my seduction back on track. I raised my
glass to the center of the table. “To us.”

Rafe clinked his glass against
mine. His dark eyes held enough stored heat to charbroil the entire room. “To
us.”

I took a small sip of wine and
put the glass down. Awkwardly I cast around for a topic. We always seemed to talk about me and my problems. I didn’t want to talk about Erica’s murder or Mama’s
smushed headlight. There must be another, less controversial, topic.

Both of us were attracted to each
other, but talking about sex was tacky. Besides, who wanted to talk about sex?
Better just to do it.

“Tell me about your family.”
There. A new conversational gambit. I was polished and suave. I smiled
encouragingly.

Rafe’s wary expression alarmed me. He put down his fork and sat up straight. His voice iced. “What do you want to know
about them?”

Mental quicksand edged up around
my neck; I didn’t have long before it would suck me under. “We never talk about
your family. If you want to keep it that way, that’s okay.”

“I keep my family separate from
my day-to-day activities.”

That was weird.

I couldn’t imagine relegating
Mama offstage. She wouldn’t hover on the outskirts of my life for any reason.
Front and center, that was Mama. I frowned. That was me, too. I couldn’t
imagine my girls keeping me at arm’s length.

I had a sudden inspiration and
went with it. “Separate worlds. Like George on the Seinfeld TV show. He didn’t
want his sets of friends to meet because worlds would collide. I get it.”

Rafe looked like he’d eaten a
lemon slice instead of an elegant plate of mixed greens lightly brushed with
raspberry vinaigrette. “I am not a television character. I am a real person.”

Dang. Every time I opened my mouth I offended him. “Gotcha.” I smiled with false radiance.

He muttered something unintelligible. “You don’t give a man much wiggle room, do you?”

He’d turned the topic back to me. At least this was a subject we were both familiar with. “With good reason. Once burned,
twice shy.”

Color climbed up his neck. “I am
not your ex-husband.”

“Thank God for that.”

“How am I supposed to take that?”

“Like a real person?”

Rafe glared at me.

I was saved from his reply by the
arrival of dinner. I had ordered the stuffed pork chops, Rafe the prime rib. Neither of us wanted to continue this scary conversation. How could I convey my longing
for a person to share my life with to Rafe if we couldn’t get through the salad
course without quarreling? Not a good sign for the long haul.

Dinner melted in my mouth. The
succulent pork chops and the rosemary-seasoned stuffing were the best things I
had ever eaten. I plowed through half my meal before I ventured into
conversation again. “You never told me how you got interested in golf,” I said
between bites.

Rafe signaled the waiter to
refill our water goblets. “Golf has been a passion for as long as I can remember.”

At last. Something we were both
interested in. “My dad used to take me golfing with him. That’s how I learned
the game. Is that way you started?”

He took his time answering. “My mother golfed, and our family belonged to a golf club. Once I realized my
aptitude for the sport, I spent more and more time golfing.”

“Your parents must be so proud of
you. My dad was absolutely thrilled when I got my CPA and went to work with
him. He bragged about me to his friends.”

Rafe slathered butter on the heel
of bread in precise strokes. As much as I wanted to discover what made this man
tick, I realized my mistake. I’d blundered again into forbidden family
territory.

My lips compressed. Brick walls
irritate me. I’m a big fan of windows and open doors. My life is an open book.
Open is good.

He ate the heel of bread, one
small bite at a time. I put down my fork and waited. If he didn’t reply, our
relationship was doomed to be superficial and shallow. The whole focus of the
evening narrowed down to this one critical moment.

I couldn’t live with a man who
was a brick wall. I needed a man who would trust me with his secrets. His gaze met mine. I was surprised at how flat and expressionless his eyes were. Not his usual
hot-enough-to-melt-chocolate gaze. Not by a long shot. His pain tore at me.

“My family doesn’t approve of my
career choice,” he said.

With those words, my emotions
veered sharply. I couldn’t believe his relatives could be so blind. Poor Rafe.
No wonder he was sensitive about his family.

Golf came to him as naturally as
breathing, but he had to go against his family to do it? I couldn’t imagine my
parents being unsupportive of any career choice I made. If I’d wanted to be an
astronaut or a ditch digger, it wouldn’t have mattered as long as I was happy
and I could pay my bills.

All those thoughts flashed
lightning quick through my head. I sensed an undercurrent of tension in the
brittle silence. My response mattered to him.