Nearly blinded by lust, her lips sought his, and she widened her mouth so he could make love to her with his tongue. Haley wanted more. Her bones were dissolving, and her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears. It was several moments before Haley realized the pounding she heard was at the door, and someone was shouting Rand’s name.
“Someone’s calling you,” she whispered, struggling out of the fog. “I think it’s Angela.”
Rand was so involved in placing a series of small, nipping kisses along her neck and trying to slip his hand inside her bikini panties, he didn’t hear her.
Alarmed now by the frantic pounding, Haley slapped his hand away. “Rand, Angela’s at the door.”
He jerked away and sat up. “What the hell does she want at this time of the night?”
They could both hear it then, the hysteria in Angela’s voice. “Rand,” she screamed. “Help me. I think Daddy’s having a heart attack.”
Rand bounded off the bed, then swore profusely as his cast bounced on the carpet. His erection was impressive beneath the white briefs. Glancing down, he swore again then grabbed a knee length robe from his closet as he hobbled toward the door and threw it open. Angela, dressed in a short midnight blue negligee, collapsed in his arms.
“It’s Daddy. He’s sick. Pains in his chest and stomach. We need to call the paramedics.”
“Take it easy, Ange,” Rand said calmly. “Call 911 while I go take a look.”
Haley had already slipped back into her nightshirt and was attempting to dial the emergency number when Angela snatched the phone out of her hand. “Give me that. Little fluff dolls like you are useless in emergencies.”
Haley didn’t react to the fluff doll comment. Angela was obviously distraught. Leaving her to the phone, she raced down the hall to George Blakely’s bedroom. George, wearing gray striped cotton pajamas, was laying on the bed, groaning pitifully, one arm clutched to his stomach.
Rand stood to one side, holding the other arm, taking his pulse. He looked up as Haley entered the room. “His pulse is steady. He says the pains seem to be more in his stomach than his chest, and he’s had diarrhea.”
Haley suddenly felt sick herself. The salmon. George could have food poisoning from the salmon. He had eaten more than anyone else, and she had worried about leaving it in the car in the hot sun.
“He may have food poisoning,” Haley said nervously.
“Food poisoning!” Angela’s horrified voice echoed behind her.
“How could he get food poisoning?” Rand leveled a hard stare at her. “Was something wrong with the dinner you served?”
Haley looked at the floor. “There may have been a problem with the salmon.”
“You bitch!” Angela yelled. “You tried to poison my father with bad salmon. As soon as the paramedics come, I’m calling the police.”
Haley’s head came up and she stared at Angela. She felt badly about the salmon, but it was an accident. No one could possibly construe bad salmon as an attempted murder. Could they? Actually, Angela seemed quite capable of doing just that.
Haley threw a helpless glance at Rand, then shuddered. He was glaring at her as if he would sign any charges Angela might bring against her, and he might add a few of his own for good measure.
Angela threw herself into Rand’s arms. “I don’t know what I’ll do if Daddy dies,” she sobbed.
The sobs sounded a little forced to Haley. “Food poisoning is not usually fatal. If it is food poisoning. No one else is sick, and we all ate the salmon.”
Angela turned on her in a rage. Towering over Haley, she grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “Don’t try to pretend that you’re not responsible for...”
There was a low growl from the corner of the room, and suddenly a twenty-five pound missile sailed through the air straight at Angela, who screamed and stumbled backwards out of the way. Delphine had launched her attack in Haley’s defense, and when Angela ducked out of her way, the dog continued sailing straight into the wall. With a loud thud, the cocker spaniel fell in a heap on the floor. After a moment of stunned silence, the dog began whimpering.
Simultaneously Haley and Rand moved toward her, but Rand reached her first. He gently moved his hands over the dog, frowning when Delphine licked his fingers. “She’s okay. I think she’s just stunned.”
Haley knelt beside Rand and patted Delphine’s head. The dog rolled onto her back, offering her stomach, and they both chuckled.
“How dare you act as if that dog is more important than my father?” Angela railed from the other side of the room.
Rand and Haley looked guiltily at each other. As Rand moved to stand up, the doorbell pealed, accompanied by a loud knocking. “Sounds like the paramedics are here.”
“I’ll let them in,” Haley offered, realizing that Rand was wincing with every step he took. He’d been putting weight on the broken leg all evening.
The paramedics checked George’s vital signs, acknowledged that it didn’t look like a heart attack, but they hooked him up to a monitor and loaded him into the ambulance just to be on the safe side. Angela and Rand hurriedly changed clothes. When Rand tried to pull his car out of the garage to follow the emergency vehicle, Angela, with one hand clenched on the stretcher, begged him to go with her in the ambulance.
“What if he dies on the way to the hospital? I need you to be with me, Rand.” He followed her in without a backward glance.
Haley, standing on the steps of the house, felt like Cinderella as the ambulance pulled out of the driveway. Not that they were heading off to a ball, but no one asked if she wanted to accompany them. She was horrified to realize she was feeling as if she really were a neglected fiancée.
It’s a fake engagement, a temporary job.
You better put the brakes on before you’re in real trouble
. But she was secretly afraid it was too late. She was already in trouble. Big trouble.
Her cheeks flushed, remembering. If Angela hadn’t knocked on the door when she did, her sexual experience would have been a lot broader than it currently was.
Haley nudged Delphine who was leaning sleepily against her legs. “Let’s go to bed, Delphie. It’s been a long day.” They trudged upstairs and fell asleep in the middle of Rand’s king size bed.
****
Rand held Angela’s hand on the way to the hospital. It was the least he could do, and the most he wanted to do. He didn’t want to put his arm around her, didn’t want to comfort her. To tell the truth he didn’t really want to be with her in the ambulance. He had wanted to follow in his car and bring Haley with him.
He had glanced back as the ambulance pulled away and had seen Haley, looking forlorn and lonely on the steps of his house, her hair sticking out in crazy corkscrew curls all over her head. It was amazing how much he’d come to like that wild hair. He almost ordered the ambulance driver to stop, but then Angela laid her head on his shoulder and begun crying again. Her sobbing was getting on his nerves. The paramedics had given George a mild sedative, which worked immediately. He was no longer moaning and was answering questions semi-coherently, but Angela was still carrying on.
Immediately he felt like a heel. George had gotten sick at his house. Perhaps from food that Rand’s fiancée had prepared. Whoa! He and Haley weren’t really engaged. She was a hired fiancée and would be gone in the morning. The thought depressed him. Suddenly, the realization he was depressed about not seeing her again scared the hell out of him.
He glanced down at Angela who was leaning against his arm, gazing up at him. Although her eyes were a little red, there was no actual moisture in their blue depths. She looked beautiful, flawless, and phony. Two seconds ago she’d been sobbing her heart out. There should have been tears, some puffiness at least.
He leaned forward to peer more closely at George and to put some distance between himself and his ex-fiancée. Blakely’s color was still pasty. Hell, maybe he was having a heart attack. It was a good thing the hospital was only a few miles from his house.
The emergency room was a nightmare of noise and people. The paramedics rushed George into a cubicle where two nurses hooked him to a large heart monitor. In the dreary waiting room, Rand lifted his cast onto a nearby chair. His leg hurt like hell. For some reason that made him think of Haley and their almost-lovemaking. Rand had wanted her so badly he felt a surge of resentment toward Angela, and even George, for interrupting them.
Haley was so responsive his groin stirred remembering the tiny little sounds she uttered as he had taken her breasts into his mouth. He shifted uncomfortably as he finally admitted to himself that Angela had only been lukewarm in bed. She made all the appropriate moves and sounds, but after one night with Haley, he realized his ex-fiancée had never exhibited true passion. She had as many control issues as he did.
Haley may look like a teenager, but she hadn’t felt like one. They were too different for a permanent relationship to work between them, but perhaps she’d settle for a short-term fling based on great sex. He was pretty sure that if he made love to her a few times, she’d be out of his system. He smiled wryly, remembering his initial reaction to her that morning, yesterday morning now. He glanced at the large clock on the wall. It was close to five a.m., and he hadn’t slept in nearly twenty-four hours.
That was his last conscious thought until Angela shook him awake forty-five minutes later. “Wake up, Rand. We can go home now.”
Rand opened his eyes to see Angela and her father in front of him. George, seated in a wheelchair, looked much better. “They think it’s just the flu,” George said sheepishly.
Rand yawned and nodded. “Good. Now Angela won’t have to press charges against Haley.”
“Against Haley? What are you talking about?”
“She accused Haley of trying to poison you with the salmon, and threatened to call the police.”
Angela had the grace to look embarrassed. “She was the one who brought up the salmon. Anyway, I was very worried about you, Daddy. I’m glad it’s only the flu.”
All three of them yawned at the same time and laughed, then Rand called a taxi to take them home. He hoped Haley was still in bed. In the cab, Rand regretted letting George sit in front with the driver as he resolutely resisted Angela’s attempts to cuddle against him. When her hand brushed against his fly, he grabbed her fingers and placed them forcefully in her lap.
“Cut it out. I’m not interested,” he whispered. “Unlike you, I
am
faithful to the person I plan to marry.”
Ignoring his words, Angela leaned over and kissed him full on the mouth. “You can’t possibly be serious about that little twit. She looks like she needs a babysitter, not a man like you. I know what you need.”
Rand was surprised to feel more than a twinge of disgust at her blatant attempts to seduce him. “You know, Angela, there’s a lot you could learn from Haley.”
She laughed scornfully. “Like what?”
“Like sweetness and compassion and how to really turn a man on. There’s something very seductive about having an old fashioned value system.”
“You’re delusional if you think you can replace me with that child,” she huffed and turned toward the window, ignoring him for the remainder of the trip.
Chapter Seven
Haley heard the whispering before she was fully awake. It was a child’s voice, right in her ear. She rolled over and stared into the bright blue eyes of a little girl no more than five years old. Delphine hung over her arms like a fur stole.
“Hi,” the little girl whispered. “Who are you?”
“Haley,” she answered, trying to get her bearings. Where the heck was she?
“Are you going to be my new aunt?”
Haley yawned as the grim reality came back to her. She shook her head. “Nope. I’m not going to be your aunt.” Sleepily, she tried to decide if that were a good or bad thing.
“How come you’re in the bed with Uncle Rand then?”
Haley glanced over her shoulder to see Rand, naked to the waist, sound asleep on the other side of the bed. After tossing and turning until five, she must have fallen asleep because she hadn’t heard him come back. She lifted her head to check the clock on the nightstand. Seven-thirty. With a groan, she dropped back on the pillow.
The little girl shifted her grip as Delphine slipped from her hold.
“Come up here so I can get a better look at you.” Haley dragged them both on the bed. Delphine nestled in beside her, but the child immediately jumped down.
“You can’t let your dog lie on the bed,” she said with a precocious toss of her head. “Uncle Rand won’t like it.”
“What’s your name, sweetie?”
Her tiny brows drew together. “Pet names are for people who don’t have real names. I have a real name.”
This little charmer, dressed in cherry red shorts and pink t-shirt, sounded just like her uncle. However, she was looking longingly at Delphine. Haley guessed the “No Pets” rule also applied to the little house at the far edge of Rand’s property.
Sliding her legs over the side of the bed, she gathered Delphine and placed her back in the little girl’s arms.
“What’s your real name?”
“Carrie Noonan.” The child sank to the floor and cradled Delphine like a large doll.
Haley shot a glance at Rand, still dead to the world, a faint snore issuing from his nose. “Well, Carrie Noonan,” she stood and reached for her robe, “let’s go to the kitchen and have breakfast and let your uncle sleep a little longer.”
“Can I bring your dog?”
“Of course.”
It was obviously a case of love at first sight, and Delphine was eating it up. She looked blissfully boneless, draped over Carrie’s small arms, her legs dangling. Every so often, a pink tongue slurped the bottom of Carrie’s chin.
As they headed down the hallway toward the stairs, Haley paused in front of both Angela and Mr. Blakely’s door. No sound at all.
“What’re you doing?” Carrie asked in a hushed whisper.
Raising a finger to her lips, Haley said, “Your uncle has other guests, and they’re still sleeping, so we need to be really quiet.”
They slipped downstairs and headed for the kitchen. While Haley gathered the ingredients from the refrigerator, Carrie agreed to have French toast and orange juice just to keep Haley company. Delphine settled comfortably under the table.