“Hello, dears, anybody home?” Ruby called from the entrance hall.
They broke apart. Rana looked dismayed, and her cheeks filled with rosy color. Trent, looking like the cat who got the cream, smiled at her lazily. “In here, Aunt Ruby. I was just eating something delicious.”
Rana glared at him as Ruby came bustling through the door. “What’s that, dear? Oh, how lovely! Miss Ramsey’s feeding you.”
“Uh-huh.”
Rana jumped from her seat and pulled out a chair for Ruby. “Join us, please. Is your friend doing well?”
“Yes, yes, much better. Wanted some company, more than anything. But tell me, how was your trip? When did you get back?”
Rana filled Ruby in on the essential facts surrounding her trip, leaving out the details. “I apologize for leaving in such a hurry without any explanation.”
“Under the circumstances, I understand,” Ruby said, laying a sympathetic hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Did Trent tell you he had your car repaired while you were away?”
“No,” he answered for her. “We’ve seen a lot of each other since she got back, but we never got around to discussing cars.”
Rana shot him another fulminating look, but luckily Ruby was too distracted to notice his double entendre. “Would you like me to fix you a sandwich, Ruby?” Rana asked. “I haven’t put away the makings yet, and you look tired.”
“Thank you, dear, maybe I will let you make me a sandwich. If neither of you needs me this afternoon, I think I’ll stay in my room and nap. My friend and I talked into the wee hours of the morning. The poor thing has no one to talk with. The children rarely visit.”
Rana prepared and grilled another sandwich. Trent nibbled on sliced cantaloupe and watermelon. His eyes rarely left Rana. They transmitted smoky looks full of implication.
“That was delicious,” Ruby told Rana when she had finished eating. “Is there anything either of you needs?”
“No, Auntie,” Trent said, solicitously helping his aunt from her chair. “You go rest. Miss Ramsey and Iare perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves. And why not let me take you out to dinner tonight?”
Ruby patted his cheek affectionately. “Isn’t he a dear boy?”
“Yes, he is,” Rana said with a happy smile.
“Did you mean that?” Trent asked Rana a few minutes later, after Ruby had retired to her room down the hall and they were alone.
“What?” She was rinsing out dishes at the sink. It had taken some convincing, but Ruby had finally consented to let her do the chore.
“About my being a dear boy?” He slid his arms around her from behind. Immediately his hands found her breasts and began to massage them. “Why do you hide these behind such bulky clothes? You’ve got beautiful, enticing breasts. Don’t you have something clingy to wear?”
She tried to struggle free, but she didn’t try very hard. “No, I like loose clothes. What difference does it make to you?”
“Because I’d like to look at them.” His thumbs drifted back and forth across her nipples until they became erect. “See what I mean? I hate to miss seeing that.”
“Stop it, Trent. Ruby might come in.”
“She’s sleeping,” he whispered against the back of her neck. “Wanna go play in the greenhouse?”
“The greenhouse?” A delicious lassitude was seeping through her, robbing her of the strength to protest.
“Yeah. I could go for some hot, steamy sex with you right now.”
“You’re shameless.”
“I’m horny,” he whispered, turning her around to face him.
“Still?”
“Grilled-ham-and-cheese sandwiches always have that effect on me.” She linked her arms around his neck. “Especially when a lusty broad like you has cooked them for me.” His arms went around her waist. He slid his hands into the back pockets of her jeans and drew her against him. “You have the cutest little butt.” He squeezed it as he fitted himself against her.
The kiss started out passionate and only got deeper. Their mouths opened to each other; tongues met. Anchoring her hips against the side of the counter with the firm pressure of his, he unbuttoned her blouse far enough to get a hand inside. He cupped her breast lovingly, gently squeezed it, and lightly rolled the nipple between his fingers.
“I want you,” he said roughly. “The greenhouse or the bedroom?”
“ Trent, we can’t,” she said feebly.
“How come?”
“It’s the middle of the day.”
“So?”
“I really need to paint. I’ve got work to do. Four new orders.”
“Okay,” he said with a heavy sigh. “I’ll leave you alone to work if you’ll let me stay in your apartment while I study my playbook.”
She watched his face carefully, looking for signs of trickery. “All right,” she conceded at last. “But you’ve got to promise to behave.”
“I promise.”
They went upstairs to her apartment. They even made a concerted effort to stick to their resolutions. But as it turned out, they made slow, lazy, afternoon love.
It was wonderful, but Trent was faintly disappointed that Ana insisted on closing the heavy drapes and blocking out most of the light. He wanted to see sunlight pouring over her body. Lying beside her on the bed, he watched her drowsing in the contented aftermath of desire. He wondered how he ever could have thought she was plain.
She was beautiful. She wasn’t like any other woman he’d ever met. She filled an emptiness in his life he hadn’t even known was there. And now that he had found her, he wasn’t about to let her go.
Eight
“Oh, here she is now.”
Rana heard Trent ’s voice the moment she stepped through the front door, and, following it, the familiar tread of his feet on the hardwood floors.
“Ana?”
“Hi.”
He rounded the corner connecting the center hall to the parlor and took her in his arms for a swift kiss. “There’s someone here I want you to meet.”
“But-”
“You’ve heard of Tom Tandy, wide receiver for the Mustangs. He’s got the best hands in the NFL. He drove down for a visit. I’ve been telling him all about you.”
She tried to dig her heels in, but Trent was pushing her toward the front parlor. She didn’t want to meet anyone, in her frazzled condition. She had been shopping for supplies and she felt hot and disheveled.
And then there was always the chance that she might be recognized when she was introduced to someone. She and Trent had been together for some time. His affection was genuine, Of that she was certain. More than ever she dreaded his finding out that she wasn’t exactly who she pretended to be. How he would feel if ever he discovered her true identity, she couldn’t guess, but she didn’t want to risk it. Everything had been so idyllic, spoiling it now was unthinkable.
They hadn’t been able to keep their love affair a secret from Ruby. That first evening, when Trent had held true to his promise to take them out to dinner, Ruby had shrewdly assessed the situation.
From behind her menu she had said, “It took the two of you long enough to discover each other.”
“What do you mean, Aunt Ruby?” Trent asked innocently.
Ruby lowered the corner of the menu and gave him a baleful look. “I’m not senile or undersexed, young man, and I resent your implication that I don’t know about these things. Where do you think I was last night?”
“You said you were going to nurse a sick friend,” he answered, his brown eyes twinkling.
“I never said it was a lady friend, though, did I?”
Rana’s lips had parted in speechless surprise. Ruby went back to studying her menu. Trent boomed out a laugh that attracted the attention of several diners, who then recognized him and came over to their table to ask for his autograph.
Since then Rana had ceased to be self-conscious about her affair with Trent in front of his aunt. Ruby acted as though there was nothing peculiar about the handsome, charismatic “hunk” falling head over heels in love with the “frump.” But Rana wasn’t so naive as to think that other people wouldn’t find his attraction to her strange.