Page 51 of Romance and Peppermint Lattes
“You wanted something?”
She’d been so confident, so sure she was doing the right thing. But now, seeing Nolan looking more dressed up and formal than he’d ever looked forher, she found herself speechless.
She couldn’t help wondering where he was going—and with whom. The “with whom” part bothered her the most.
He glanced pointedly at his wristwatch. “How long is this going to take?” he asked coolly. “I’m supposed to pick up Prudence in fifteen minutes.”
“Prudence?” His face, tight with impatience, drew her full attention.Prudence, her mind repeated. Who was this woman?
Then in a flash, Maryanne knew. It was all she could do not to laugh and inform him that his little plan just wasn’t working. No imaginary date was going to makeherjealous.
He wasn’t seeing anyone named Prudence. Good grief, if he had to invent a name, the least he could’ve done was come up with something a little more plausible than Prudence.
In fact, Maryanne remembered Nolan casually mentioning a week or so earlier that he’d been asked to speak at a Chamber of Commerce banquet. There had also been a notice in the paper. Who did he think he was kidding?
Of course he wanted her to believe he was dating another woman. That was supposed to discourage her, she guessed. Except that it didn’t.
“It wasn’t important...” she said, gesturing vaguely. “The radiators were giving me trouble this morning, but I’ll manage. I was planning to go out tonight myself.”
His eyes connected with hers. “Another pity party?”
“Not this time.” She considered announcing she had a hot date herself, but that would have been carrying this farce a little too far. “Barbara and I will probably go to a movie.”
“Sounds like fun.”
“I’m sure it will be.” She smiled up at him, past the square cut of his jaw to his incredibly dark eyes. “Have a good time with... Prudence,” she said with a bright knowing smile.
Holding back a laugh, she returned to her own apartment. The rat. The low-down dirty rat! He was pretending to escortsome imaginary woman to a fancy affair. Oh, he’d like nothing better than for Maryanne to think he considered her a pest. But she knew that wasn’t quite the case.
Where was the man who’d rushed to her rescue when the pipes needed a little coaxing? Where was the man who’d nearly been run over on a basketball court when he saw her standing on the sidelines? Where was the man who’d tried to set her up with someone else he thought more suitable? Nolan Adams had just proved what she’d suspected all along. He was a coward—at least when it came to love.
Suddenly depressed, Maryanne slowly crossed the living room and sank on to her sofa, trying to gather her wits. Ten minutes later, she still sat there, mulling things over and feeling sorry for herself, when she heard Nolan’s door open and close. She immediately perked up, wondering if he’d had a change of heart. He seemed to pause for a moment outside her door, but any second thoughts he might be having didn’t last long.
Barbara phoned soon after, full of apologies, to cancel their movie plans, so Maryanne spent the evening drowning her sorrows in television reruns and slices of cold pizza.
She must have fallen asleep because a harsh ringing jolted her awake a couple of hours later. She leapt off the sofa and stumbled dazedly around before she realized the sound came from the phone. She rushed across the room.
A greeting had barely left her lips when her father’s booming voice assailed her.
“Where the hell are you?”
“Hello, Dad,” she muttered, her heart sinking. How like him to get to the subject at hand without anything in the way of preliminaries. “How are you, too?”
“I want to know where you’re living and I want to know right now!”
“I beg your pardon?” she asked, stalling for time. Obviously her father had discovered her small deception.
“I talked to the managing editor of theSeattle Reviewthis morning and he told me you haven’t worked there in weeks. He said you’d quit! Now I want to know what this craziness is you’ve been feeding your mother and me about a special assignment.”
“Uh...” By now, Maryanne was awake enough to know her father wasn’t in any mood to listen to excuses.
“You lied to us, girl.”
“Not exactly...” She paused, searching for the right words. “It was more a case of omission, don’t you think?”
“You’ve had us worried sick. We’ve been trying to get hold of you all afternoon. Where were you? And who the hell is Nolan Adams?”
“Nolan Adams?” she echoed, playing dumb, which wasn’t all that difficult at the moment.
