She shrugged. “It’s ancient history.” And broken hearts mend with time, as do broken limbs, though the scars remain for a lifetime.
“You told me that you’ve had several jobs since you left college. What have you done, and how did you end up in the accounting department of Pro Sporting Goods?”’
“What is this, an interview?”
“You interest me. I’d like to know more about you,” Derek replied candidly. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”
“What the heck. Somehow you’ve managed to drag my entire life story out of me during the two times we’ve been together. You might as well ask about my work history, too.” She shoved her sunglasses higher on her nose. “While I was recovering from the accident, I kept the books for my father’s store. We were both relieved when I ditched the walker and decided to look for employment in Little Rock. There I found a job in a small credit union for a while, but it was so boring. I quit after only four months.”
“Then what?”
“Well, my next job was in a ladies’ dress shop, but it didn’t work out.”
He groaned. “Let me guess. You told the ladies exactly how they looked in the dresses they tried on.”
She giggled. “How did you know? That’s exactly what I did. Can you imagine how some of those, um, well-endowed women looked in dresses two sizes too small and ten years too young? I could tell I wasn’t cut out to be a saleswoman, so I decided to move here and try something new.”
“Why San Francisco?”
“I had a crush on Michael Douglas when I was a teenager. I watched The Streets of San Francisco every week, so when I decided to get out of Arkansas and started imagining all the places I could go, I automatically thought of San Francisco.”
“That’s a damned odd way to choose a place to pick up and move to,” Derek grunted, looking at her again with that dull silver glint that told her he wasn’t quite sure whether she was teasing him.
“A lot of things I do are damned odd,” she replied airily.
“I wondered if you were aware of that.”
“But fun,” she added, swinging her legs over the side of the lounge chair. “Any further questions?” she asked as she sat up facing him.
“How many jobs have you had here?”
“Only two. The first was as a hostess in a lovely little restaurant. That didn’t work out, either.”
“I’m almost afraid to ask why.”
“Well, every time I invited the diners to ‘walk this way’—”
“Summer, that’s enough of the jokes about your limp. It’s sick humor, and I don’t find it at all amusing.”
“It’s called gallows humor, and you’re just too stuffy to appreciate it.”
He sighed but asked one final question. “How’d you get the job with Pro Sporting Goods?”
“No one else wanted it.” She stood, dropping her towel. “If the inquisition’
s over, I’m going back into the pool.”
He waved a hand to indicate that she could do as she liked, then watched broodingly as she limped to the side of the pool and dived expertly into the cool depths. In the water her awkwardness vanished, giving way to a graceful style that was a pleasure to watch. His eyes followed her through several laps, noting the racer’s turns at the ends of the pool, modified so that she was pushing off only with her strong leg. Summer was a puzzle to him. She seemed too bright, too complex, to explain her apparently shallow approach to life. But when she’d told him about her accident and the long months of recovery, the end of her career as a dancer and as a performer, the desertion of her college boyfriend and the chain of unfulfilling jobs, she’d tossed out the pieces of information as if she’d been speaking of someone else. Did she really think that her glib manner hid the pain and traces of bitterness in her eyes? Was he the only one who could see them there?
Why the hell should he care? he asked himself exasperatedly. He barely knew the woman. She was someone he was spending time with only because he wanted her to help him get closer to his sister.
Bull. Even he didn’t believe that.
He narrowed his eyes as Summer stopped swimming to float lazily on her back, her eyes closed in pleasure. Her trim, sleek figure floated effortlessly in the clear water. The wet scarlet maillot hugged her taut curves caressingly. Caressingly? Now where had that word come from? His palms were itching, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was imagining the feel of Summer’s skin beneath them. Dammit, he had no intention of giving in to an inexplicable attraction to a woman who would only laugh at him if he should tell her how he felt. She probably used men as unconscionably as his sister, her alleged search for the perfect hero an excuse for going through scores of potential candidates. Someone could get hurt in a relationship with the flighty young woman in his pool—and chances were it wouldn’t be Summer, he told himself sternly.
He closed his eyes and tried to remember if his palms had itched even once during his pleasantly uneventful, short-term affair with Joanne Payne. He didn’t remember them doing so. Damn.
The steaks were tender and perfectly grilled, the weather beautiful for eating on the terrace overlooking his pool. Everything should have been fine, yet Derek realized that things had been going downhill between him and Summer since he’d questioned her so intensely an hour or so earlier. The lazily amused friendliness she had shown him during their swim had been replaced by an unsubtle mocking attitude that he was finding increasingly annoying. She’d gibed at him throughout the meal, making fun of his life-style, his bureaucratic establishment background, even his home. And all the while she looked so temptingly touchable as she lounged across the small patio table from him that he found himself wanting to haul her inside and throw himself on her slender body—after he warmed her fanny for daring to laugh at him.