“What held her up?” Scott asked, nodding after Kelly and his gossiping sister as he approached with the muchmaligned Paula on his arm.
“Her car wouldn’t start. Sounds like a dead battery—maybe the alternator.” Shane almost growled the answer, still cold inside at the thought of Kelly being stranded on some dark, lonely road with a dead battery. Anything could have happened to her.
“What did you do, chew her out? You’re still glaring at her.”
He made a deliberate effort to smooth his expression. “I pointed out that she should take better care of her car.”
“I’ll bet you did.” Scott grinned. “Probably sounded a lot like some of the conversations I’ve had with Heather. She’s doing better now, but she used to think the warning lights on her dashboard were merely hints that she should have her car serviced when she had some time to spare.”
Again, Shane was struck by the way everyone seemed to think of him and Kelly as family—cousins, perhaps, or even a sibling-type relationship. No one seemed to suspect that what he felt for Kelly was anything but fraternal. How could they not see the truth in his eyes when he felt as if it burned there like a neon sign?
Maybe he and Kelly could keep this new development a secret, after all. Though he didn’t know how long he could continue the pretense, he thought as he realized exactly how many pairs of appreciative male eyes were focused on Kelly at that very moment.
“Excuse me,” Paula said, her hands on her hips, her generous breasts sticking out provocatively as she stood defensively. “I happen to take very good care of my car. I have the oil and filters changed and the tires checked every three thousand miles. When I was in college and didn’t have money to pay someone to do it, I changed the oil myself.”
Shane smiled to himself as he thought that money was certainly not an issue for Paula. Alimony and divorce settlements from three wealthy, older ex-husbands had given the thirty-something—she would never admit how far past thirty—divorcée the freedom to live on her own terms now. Scott gazed indulgently at her, obviously having no interest in whether or not she could change the oil in a car.
While Shane had experimented a bit with relationships based on nothing more than physical attraction, he had long since decided he needed more. The women he admired most—his stepmother, his aunts and cousins, Judge Carla D’Alessandro—were all woman of intelligence, competence and integrity. Women who were perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, but valued family above all else. Women who stood beside, not behind, their equally competent mates.
He found his eyes turning toward Kelly again. Kelly, who had been on her own for a long time. Kelly, who had pursued her advanced degree with unwavering determination, who had fought her way back from a terrible car accident, enduring two operations, nearly six weeks of hospitalization, months of painful therapy and occasional lingering discomfort from the resulting quarter-inch difference in the length of her legs. And she had come through it all with a positive attitude, and an optimism he had always admired.
Other people might have complained about the bad luck of being involved in that accident. Shane had heard Kelly say several times that she felt fortunate the accident hadn’t been worse, that she had come through alive and still able to walk, and to have made so many friends as a result of the accident.
Kelly was a very special woman, he mused. He suspected the reason no other woman had particularly interested him during the past year and a half was that no other woman compared in his mind to Kelly. Why hadn’t he done something about it earlier? Was it because he’d instinctively sensed her fears—or because he had been battling some of his own?
“C’mon, Scott, dance with me,” Paula said, tugging his hand. “If we have to spend an evening at a charity dance, we might as well enjoy the music.”
Scott gave her a lazy nod. “Sure. See you later, Shane.”
“I really dislike that woman,” Heather muttered as she and Kelly rejoined Shane, Heather glaring seethingly after her twin and his date.
“Get a life, Heather,” he replied with the affectionate bluntness of a very long friendship. “Stop worrying about Scott.”
“What if he marries her? I do not want that woman to be the mother of my nieces and nephews.”
“He’s not going to marry her. He can’t afford to marry her. She likes ’em old and rich, remember? She and Scott are just friends.”
Heather sighed. “I hope you’re right.”
“Speaking of your social life, I thought you were bringing someone tonight.”
The sigh that escaped her this time was even more heartfelt. “I was. I had a date with a homicide detective. His pager went off two minutes after he arrived at my place to pick me up. He said he’ll probably be tied up for hours. I thought about just staying home, but after spending more than an hour getting ready for this thing, I wasn’t about to let my efforts go to waste.”
“Your efforts paid off,” he assured her, looking away from Kelly long enough to notice that Heather did look exceptionally nice in a deep green dress embellished with sparkling gold threads, a theme repeated in the gold stuff woven into her upswept auburn hair. “Very festive.”
She caught his arm. “Come dance with me. I want everyone to see how gorgeous I look.”
Shane glanced at Kelly. “You two go ahead,” she said with a smile. “I’m going to talk to Michael and Judy. And I’ll introduce myself to Cameron’s friend.”
“Save me a dance,” he ordered.
&n
bsp; She lifted an eyebrow. “You know I don’t dance.”
“You will tonight.” With that, he turned and gave in to Heather’s tugging at his arm.
“That was nice of you, Shane,” Heather announced as she claimed a few inches of dance floor and turned in to his arms.