Wildfire (9 page)

Helen shook her head.

“You really should. It’s patterned after the old-world festival in Munich. We had a wonderful time. There were groups of folk dancers and German brass bands. The place was full of color and life with lots of traditional
Gem
ü
tlichkeit
.
The food was fabulous and…”

She paused at the look of amusement on Helen’s face.

“It was very nice,” Amanda concluded with more customary decorum.

Beth and Helen had to grin at each other across the room after Amanda left for a library faculty committee meeting.

“Her trip to the Oktoberfest must have really been something,” Helen mused. “Amanda isn’t usually so effervescent.”

“I know. I imagine the company had something to do with it,” was Beth’s hunch.

“You mean Brady Gallagher?” Helen turned to ask her.

“Well, I can’t see Bob taking her to Milwaukee for a beer festival.”

“I think they’re a cute couple,” Helen benevolently decreed.

“Amanda and Bob?” Beth questioned in a horrified fashion.

“No,” Helen corrected. “Amanda and Brady.”

“You’ve got that matchmaking gleam in your eye again, Helen.”

The older woman tossed her head. “Nonsense. I was just stating an opinion, that’s all.”

Amanda’s meeting ran late. John was playing head honcho by expounding on his master plan for the library’s grandiose future, wasting time that should have been used to discuss the current problems that needed immediate attention. Guy Lox had been obnoxious as usual, his petulant voice grating on Amanda’s nerves. She was nursing a full-blown headache by the time she returned to the comparative haven of her own office. Beth knocked on the adjoining door a few moments later.

“How did the meeting go?”

“I’ll give you one guess,” Amanda returned, pulling a bottle of aspirin out of her desk’s top drawer.

“Don’t tell me…”

“I’m trying not to,” Amanda assured her with a grimace.

“How about lunch?” Beth asked, interrupting Amanda’s muttered commentary about Guy Lox’s lineage.

“I’m too angry to eat.”

“Then I’ll tell you something that will cheer you up.” Beth paused a moment in order to build the suspense. “Brady stopped in to see you.”

Amanda bristled. “And why should that cheer me up?”

“You’re not still denying it, are you?”

“I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about,” Amanda loftily returned.

“Don’t tell me you’re still pretending not to be interested in Brady.”

“I’m not pretending anything,” Amanda denied. “Brady and I are friends, nothing more. What did he want?”

“He didn’t say. He did look tired though.”

“We didn’t get in until late last night,” Amanda absently explained, studying a memo from the dean that she’d just found on top of her desk. Beth’s continued silence finally caused her to look up. The foregone conclusion written on her friend’s face made Amanda voice a reprimanding exclamation. “Beth!”

“I didn’t say a word,” Beth innocently protested, her blue eyes sparkling.

“You didn’t have to.”

“I can’t help it. I’ve seen the way Brady looks at you.”

“And how do you think he looks at me?” Amanda’s voice was studiously nonchalant.

“It isn’t something you can put in words,” Beth finally said. “It’s too elusive for that.”

“I’m sure it is,” Amanda replied, silently kicking herself for asking in the first place. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

“But I thought you said you were too angry to be hungry.”

“Eating is preferable to being subjected to the third degree.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, all you have to do is tell me,” Beth retorted.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Amanda promptly stated.

“Fine. I’m not the kind of friend that will hold a grudge against someone just because they clam up.”

“Clams? Perfect. How about going to that new seafood restaurant for lunch?”

The suggestion successfully diverted Beth’s attention. Their lunch hour passed without further mention of Brady. The aspirin hadn’t helped her headache much, just dulled it to a vague annoyance. Walking back to her office with Beth, Amanda was absently rubbing the back of her neck when she got the funny sensation that someone was watching her. She looked up and found Brady propped against her closed office door, one hand thrust into his jeans pocket. He was obviously waiting for her.

“Hi, Beth. How’s the head today, Mandy?”

“My head is fine, thank you,” she replied, unlocking her office under his leisurely gaze.

Brady grinned conspiratorially at Beth before asking Amanda, “No aftereffects from all the beer?”

Her expression was one of censorious protest. “You make it sound like I was drunk.”

“No, you weren’t drunk.” He straightened up and followed Amanda and Beth into the office.

“Of course not.” Amanda’s reply was unknowingly haughty.

“A little high, perhaps.”

Beth’s stifled laughter was clearly audible across the room, but Amanda was not amused. “Brady!”

His look was one of boyish innocence. “Well, you were.”

“I was not.”

“Oh, I get it.” He nodded knowingly. “Your memory of last night is a little hazy, right?”

“No, that’s not right!”

“Don’t tell me. It’s not right, it’s left, right?”

Beth found Brady’s last statement incomprehensible and said so. “What are you two talking about?”

Brady obligingly turned to explain. “Your friend here has a little problem telling her left from right.”

“I do not,” Amanda fiercely denied.

“Then put out your left hand.”

Amanda had to pause a moment, and was lost.

“See,” Brady teased. “She has to think about it first. Very cautious is our Amanda.”

Beth’s appreciative grin was tinged with more than a hint of admiration. She’d never seen anyone treat Amanda with such raillery. No man had ever dared. But courage did not seem to be a trait that Brady Gallagher lacked.

Amanda was very much aware of Beth’s amusement and took out her frustration on the cause of her discomfiture—Brady. “Did you come here for a reason? Other than making fun of me, I mean. Because, if not, I do have more important things to do than play games with you.”

“I can’t imagine what. Okay.” Brady put up his hand to forestall her furious response. “I was just kidding, Mandy. Actually I stopped by to ask if you’d seen Guy Lox today.”

“Yes, he was at this morning’s library committee meeting. Why?”

Brady shrugged, momentarily drawing her attention to the powerful width of his shoulders. “I got a message that he wanted to see me, and his secretary seemed to think that he’d be here in the library.

“I believe he and John went out to lunch. They may not be back until late.” This was one of John’s favorite ways of avoiding work, the all-afternoon lunch.

“Well, if it’s important, Lox will just have to get in touch with me some other time.”

“Any leads on the arson case?” Beth inserted.

Brady wearily shook his head. “Nothing concrete. Listen, I’ve got to get back to headquarters. I’ll see you later, Mandy.”

But he didn’t. In fact, Amanda didn’t see him again until Thursday. She knew he’d been terribly busy with the arson investigation, questioning people for a possible lead. The students, who weren’t exactly enamored with the police to start off with, were very vocal in their dissatisfaction and Brady had been called upon to speak to them this morning. Amanda had managed to slip away to the auditorium and listen to part of his presentation. He handled himself well, never losing control of the situation. Several students tried to put him on the defensive by attacking his investigation and demanding immediate results. But Brady was accustomed to dealing with more virulent attacks than those provided by the students and withstood the barrage without any difficulty.

Amanda felt a rush of what could almost have been proud affection at the sight of his familiar jeaned figure. Was she the only one present who knew Brady was left-handed, that he liked sauerkraut on his hot dogs, that he enjoyed both classical music and electronic games?
What
’
s that got to do with anything?
her conscience demanded.
Haven
’
t you got better things to do than stand here mooning over a policeman still in his twenties?
The answer was yes, there were any number of things she should have been doing, including keeping an appointment she’d set up with a sales representative from a library supply house. Amanda slipped out of the auditorium, and returned to work.

She encountered Brady in the hallway a few hours later. After the fiasco he’d put her through the last time they’d met in her office, she knew she should display regal disinterest. She really did try to cultivate her anger, but Brady’s exhausted appearance foiled her intentions.

“You look tired,” she noted.

“I’m okay,” Brady murmured. “You sound almost worried about me.”

“Maybe I am almost worried about you.”

“I saw you in the auditorium this morning. Why’d you leave so early? Was my voice putting you to sleep?”

“I had to get back to work.”

“And I suppose I wasn’t meant to notice you there in the first place,” Brady astutely guessed.

“I didn’t say that.”

“I know you didn’t, but you were sitting in the last row.”

“You handled the students very well,” Amanda complimented, hoping to divert his attention.

“Handled?” He questioned her use of the word.

She eyed him in exasperation. “You know what I mean.”

“Sorry.” Tired though he was, his eyes still held a glimmer of devilment. “I can’t seem to resist teasing you.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t know.” He shook his head. “Must be something to do with your blond hair, or maybe it’s your big brown eyes.”

“Are you sure it isn’t my scrunched-up nose or my pleated forehead?” she joked.

“Now that you mention it…”

Amanda put up her hands in defeat. “Forget I asked.”

“I’d never forget anything you asked, Mandy.” Despite the noise of passing students, Brady was still able to inflect a degree of intimacy into the statement, making it sound like a devoted promise.

She stopped fighting. “Would you like to have dinner at my place?”

“Can you cook?”

“You’ll have to decide that for yourself.”

“There’s no time like the present. How about tonight?”

“Tonight, um…” She floundered for a moment before agreeing. “Okay, tonight. Seven o’clock,” she added before he made it any earlier.

“I’ll try and hold off until then.”

“I’m sure you can manage it,” she affirmed. “Remember your army combat training.”

Amanda didn’t have time to both change out of her work clothes and prepare dinner, so she had to make do with removing her suit jacket and opening the top buttons of her plum silk blouse. She put on a bib-type apron to protect her clothing. During the short drive home from work, she had put together a menu in her head. Beef Stroganoff for the main course, with a salad and a frozen vegetable. A quick stop at the local bakery had supplied dessert—a strawberry-rhubarb pie.

The meat was simmering in its own juices when she left the kitchen to set the dining room table. A white tablecloth with a centerpiece of driftwood and ivy was the backdrop for the table settings of space-age, unbreakable dinnerware. Amanda unsuccessfully tried to catch a glimpse of her appearance in the flat surface of the dishes.
I must be using the wrong dishwashing detergent,
she laughed to herself. She decided against using the candlesticks that adorned the sideboard. “This is just a friendly dinner,” she explained to them, as if they could hear her.

Back in the kitchen, Amanda placed a package of frozen peas in her space-saving microwave and prepared a tossed salad. The Stroganoff’s smooth, golden-brown sauce was near perfection as she poured it into a warming dish. Thank God it hadn’t curdled when she’d added the sour cream.

The summons of the doorbell interrupted her prayer of thankfulness. While hurrying to answer it, Amanda was removing her apron with one hand and tidying her hair with the other. This left no time to check the caller’s identity by looking through the door’s diamond-shaped window. Expecting to find Brady, Amanda was dismayed to discover Bob Mason sedately standing on her front porch.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Bob, what a surprise!” Amanda exclaimed, surreptitiously checking her watch. She had about five minutes to get rid of Bob before Brady was due to arrive, providing he didn’t come early.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call first,” Bob began.

So
am I
, she mentally agreed.

“…but I was in the neighborhood and thought I might as well drop by to ask you about the country club’s annual dinner.”

Amanda had never noticed before how slowly Bob spoke, drawing out each syllable and pausing between each word. Or did it only seem that way because she was so eager to get rid of him?

“What about the annual dinner?” she pressed, urging him to get to the point.

“Did you want to go with me again this year?”

“But the dinner isn’t until Christmas, is it?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m not sure I can make a commitment that far in advance.”

Bob was surprised. “Why, Amanda, this doesn’t sound like you at all. Normally you prefer things settled ahead of time.”

“Can I check back with you tomorrow, Bob?”

“I suppose so,” he reluctantly agreed.

“Fine. I’ll call you.” Amanda reached for the door and abruptly pulled it open as a sign of dismissal. Brady, who was preparing to knock on her door, almost rapped on her forehead instead. He quickly lowered his hand, his warm smile of pleasure fading at the sight of Bob standing behind her.

“These are for you.” He shoved
a bunch of marigolds into her hands. “Sorry I didn’t get any for you, Bob, but I didn’t think orange was your color.”

“What are you doing here, Gallagher?”

Amanda grimaced at the deliberately belligerent tone of Bob’s voice.

Surprisingly Brady didn’t return the anger, although he did return the question. “I was just about to ask the same of you, Mason.”