Читать книгу The Dating Game - Sandra Field - Страница 5

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.