Page 56 of The Playboy and the Widow
“Late. Real late.”
“How late?”
“She didn’t get in until after midnight last night.”
Cliff grinned. “I suppose she’s seeing a lot of her old high-school friends.”
“Especially one old friend. Aboyfriend,” Joan said heavily.
“Oh?”
“Yes, his name is Danny Helleberg. He’s not nearly as good-looking as you, but Grandma told me that looks aren’t everything. Grandma insists that Danny will make an excellent stepdad. Katie and I aren’t sure. Out of all the men Mother’s been dating—including the man with references—we vote for you.”
Eleven
A week! It hadn’t even taken Diana a week to forget about him. The minute she was out of Cliff’s sight, she’d started dating another man behind his back. Outrage poured over him like burning oil, scalding his thoughts. He should have learned from Becky that women weren’t to be trusted. He’d been a fool to allow another woman, someone he’d thought he could trust, to do this to him a second time.
Pacing seemed to help, and Cliff did an abrupt about-face and marched to his living-room window with a step General Mac Arthur would have praised. All along, Diana had probably planned and plotted this assault on his pride. Look at how cleverly she’d manipulated him thus far! Why, she’d had him eating out of the palm of her hand! With his fists clenched tightly at his sides, Cliff turned away from the unseen panorama before him and stepped into his kitchen, opening the refrigerator. He stared blankly at its contents, shook his head, wondered what he was doing there and closed the door. Diana was ingenious, he’d grant her that much. She had him right where she wanted him—lonely, miserable and wanting her. From the minute he’d met her, he hadn’t been himself. It was as though he were out of sync with his inner self while he mulled over what this young widow and her daughters were doing in his life. He’d listened to her while she tore him apart, searched deep within himself and recognized the truth of what she’d said. And all the while she’d waited patiently for him to return to her. And he had. Diana had been so confident that she hadn’t so much as tried to contact him. Not once.
Then this sweet, innocent widow had duped him into believing this two-week jaunt to Wichita was a vacation to visit her family. She was visiting all right, but it wasn’t her family she’d been so eager to get home to see. Oh, no, it was some old-time boyfriend she could hardly wait to date again. While she’d been looking at Cliff with those wide, deceiving eyes of hers, she’d been scheming to hook up with this Danny whatever-his-name-was.
And another thing—some mother she turned out to be, leaving Joan and Katie this way. Both girls had bubbled over with excitement, they’d been so happy to hear from him. The poor kids were lonely. And what children wouldn’t be, left in a strange house with people they hardly knew, while their mother was gallivanting around Wichita with another man?
Cliff knew one thing. If Diana was painting the town, he wasn’t going to idly sit at home, pining away for her. He was through keeping theTV Guidecompany, through missing Diana or even thinking about her. In fact, he was finished with her entirely, he decided suddenly. He didn’t need her, and it was all too obvious that she didn’t need him, either. Fine. She could have it her way. In fact, she could have her old high-school boyfriend. Being the noble man he was, Cliff determined that he would quietly bow out of the picture. He’d even wish the two childhood sweethearts every happiness.
Now that he’d made a decision, Cliff took out his little black book and flipped through the pages. The names and phone numbers of the women listed here would give Diana paranoia. Grinning, he ran his finger down the first section and stopped at Missy’s phone number. One look at Missy, and Diana would know she was out of the running. Already he felt better. The thought of Diana comparing herself to another one of his dates and falling short was comforting to his injured ego. As he’d told himself a minute before, Cliff Howard didn’t need Diana Collins.
He reached for the phone and hit the first three digits of Missy’s number, then abruptly disconnected. He wasn’t in the mood for Missy. Not tonight.
Determined, he turned the page and smiled again when he saw Ingrid’s name. The pretty blond Swede was another one Diana would turn green over. This time, however, it wasn’t the voluptuous body that would pull the widow up short, although heaven knew Ingrid was stacked in all the right places. No, Ingrid was a well-educated corporate attorney, in addition to being independently wealthy. Cliff knew how much Diana would have loved to get her college degree. Soothed by the thought, Cliff reached for the phone and punched out a long series of numbers, but he hung up before the first ring.
Diana wasn’t such a terrible mother. Look at how she’d calmed Katie down in the middle of a thunderstorm. The unexpected, unwanted thought caused him to frown.
Okay, so she hadn’t exactly left her daughters in the hands of strangers, but Joan and Katie hardly knew their grandparents. It seemed to Cliff that Diana would want to spend her time with her mother and father. He sagged against the back of the couch and let out his breath in a heated rush.
He didn’t want to be with Missy tonight, not Ingrid, either. Diana was the only woman who interested him, and had been the only one for weeks. He had an understanding with Diana, unspoken, but not undefined. They had something wonderful going—they wanted to test these feelings, explore this multifaceted attraction. If she felt the need to date other men, then that was up to her. For his part, he’d been living in the singles world for a long time; he didn’t need another woman in his arms to tell him what he already knew. His gaze fell to the black book in his hands. He riffled through the pages, stopping now and again at a name that brought back fond memories. Yet there wasn’t anyone listed whom he’d like to wrap in his arms, no one he longed to kiss and love. Given a magic wand and a bucketful of wishes, Cliff would have conjured up Diana Collins and only Diana Collins. Widow. Mother. And, he added painfully, heartbreaker.
Cliff must have dozed off watching television, because the next thing he was aware of was the phone. Its piercing rings jolted him awake. He straightened, rubbed his hand over his eyes, then reached for his cell.
“Hello.”
“Cliff, it’s Diana.”
The sound of her voice was enough to send the blood rushing through his veins. When he spoke, he attempted to hide the sarcasm behind banter. “So how was your hot date with Danny Heartthrob?”
“That’s what I called about. Listen, Cliff, I don’t know what the girls told you...”
“Quite a bit, if you must know.” Again he made it sound as though the entire evening had been a joke to him.
“Are you mad?”
She sounded worried and uptight, but Cliff thought it was poetic justice. “Should I be?”
“No!”
“Then why all the concern?”
Diana hesitated, not liking the condescending note in his voice. “I thought, you know, that you might have gotten upset because... well, because I’d gone out to dinner with Danny.”
