Yesterday's Love (8 page)

“Is that bad?”

She shrugged. “It is if you had other plans for the rest of your life.”

“The marriage bit again,” he said with a sigh. “It's crazy to worry about that. They can't push us into anything we don't want.”

“Are you kidding? You are exactly what they've been looking for in a son-in-law. They're not about to let you get away. Didn't you notice the look of relief in my mother's eyes?” She glowered at him, then added with an air of resignation. “No, of course you didn't. You were too busy trying to figure out why I'm not more like them.”

“The thought did cross my mind.”

She looked so sad when he said that that he wanted to take it back.

“I don't know why I'm not,” she said wearily, as if it were something she'd though about often. “I try to be more organized. I really do, but it seems to escape me. There are always so many more interesting things going on. Maybe I'm a throwback to my grandmother. Everyone thought she was a little cracked too, just because she didn't believe in sitting back and letting life slip by. She had the time of her life. She went out and grabbed what she wanted, without giving a hoot if it was considered proper. The rest of the family was absolutely scandalized by her antics, but when she died at eighty-one, she had no regrets.

“I'm not going to have any either,” she added defiantly, her eyes flashing a challenge at him.

“I wouldn't want you to,” Tate countered, meeting her gaze head-on without flinching. He wondered briefly why it was so important for her to believe that.

Victoria seemed to consider the sincerity of his claim, then nodded. “No, maybe not. But you do think I should do things by the rules. I can tell from that funny little look you get in your eyes every time I do or say something you don't approve of. I know what you think of my bookkeeping and my house. You think I should computerize my records and live in some tidy little apartment with a fully equipped kitchen, wall-to-wall carpeting and a dead bolt lock on the door.” She shivered.

Tate grinned at her apparent idea of a fate worse than death. “Would that be so awful?”

“Don't you see?” she said plaintively. “It wouldn't be me. Filling in all those little numbers bores me, and I like light and space and character in a house. I even like the fact that mine's a mess right now, because when I'm finished fixing it up, I'll know how much I've accomplished.”

Tate didn't know what to say to that. Victoria waited for a response, then sighed and regarded him as though he were hopeless. “You loved their house, didn't you?”

“I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but yes,” he admitted.

Not only had the exterior been in perfect condition, the inside had been spotless, freshly painted in soft colors and decorated with a sense of symmetry. There hadn't been a magazine out of place. He wouldn't have changed a thing, including the intriguing collection of photos of Victoria from infancy through adolescence. She'd been a golden-haired cherub at birth and her evolution into a wickedly impish redhead had charmed him. The house had fairly shouted of family and tradition and dependability.

He sighed aloud at the memory and a soft smile curved his mouth. “I thought it was lovely.”

“See. I knew it,” Victoria huffed and then retreated into silence. She didn't say another word on the ride home, until they pulled to a stop in front of her house. Even then, she only mumbled an agreement to be in his office the following afternoon at two to wrap up the audit. She was out of the car before he could even begin to figure out what was wrong with her, much less try to take her in his arms and recapture the wildfire and magic of those first tentative kisses they'd shared earlier in the evening.

All night long Tate thought about the evening with the Marshalls, going over and over everything that had happened in his usual methodical way, trying to figure out why Victoria's impish humor had vanished. The evening had started out so well, and he hadn't been mistaken about those kisses in her kitchen. She was more than attracted to him. She had wanted him as much as he wanted her. Yet when they'd returned to her house, alone again at last, she couldn't get away from him fast enough.

He spent all morning at his desk shuffling papers and thinking about Victoria. His frustration and confusion, along with the sharp sexual tension in his abdomen that threatened to embarrass him, mounted all afternoon. He glanced up at the clock. It was 2:30 and Victoria was late again.

“Damn it,” he grumbled moodily. “Why the devil can't she at least learn to be on time? Doesn't she own a watch?”

“Problems?” Pete Harrison inquired from the doorway in his gruff, raspy voice. That voice, combined with his perpetual scowl, gave the impression that he was always angry. Tate was one of the few people on his staff who suspected he wasn't.

“I thought that crazy dame who wanted the refund was due in here this afternoon,” he said, staring at Tate pointedly. “Where is she?”

“She's late.”

Pete seemed about to growl, then said mildly, “Hey, McAndrews, don't worry about it. What'd you expect from a kook?”

Tate had expected this particular kook to at least make an attempt to be on schedule just this once, since it was her taxes they were trying to straighten out. For Pete's benefit, he simply shrugged his agreement. There was no point in letting his boss know that he'd like to wring the woman's pretty little neck. Pete would think the uncharacteristic display of emotion highly suspicious. He'd moved Tate quickly through the ranks precisely because of his cool, calm, objective demeanor. Murdering the subject of an audit simply because she was late for an appointment did not qualify as objective—much less rational—behavior.

Despite his efforts to control it, some of his irritation apparently showed on his face anyway because Pete was regarding him suspiciously. “You okay, McAndrews? Is there a problem with this case I ought to know about?”

“What kind of problem could there be? You said it. The woman's a kook,” he said, immediately feeling disloyal. If she was that much of a kook, then why was he so damned attracted to her? Why had he been sitting at his desk all morning watching the clock and counting the hours until her arrival, instead of working on another file? Much as he hated to admit it, he could hardly wait to see how she'd look today. He wondered if he'd find her as alluring as ever. Even worse, he could hardly wait to see what crazy, quirky tangent her mind would take. None of this he could admit to Pete.

Aloud, he said only, “I'll have the whole thing wrapped up in a day or two.”

Pete nodded. “Good. I need you on something else next week, so don't waste any time.” Pete muttered something else about wasting taxpayer dollars investigating dingy females as he wandered away, leaving Tate to glare angrily at the sweeping second hand of the clock as though it were responsible for Victoria's tardiness.

He had started pacing around his office like a caged lion when the door swung open, and Victoria breezed in wearing a dress that must have been in vogue at the turn of the century. Tate was getting used to these out-of-date costumes of hers. He realized it somehow suited her with its puffed sleeves, fitted waist and mid-calf skirt. Still, he glanced cautiously down to check for high-button shoes, but her feet, thankfully, were clad in perfectly ordinary black patent pumps. From those tiny feet and well-turned ankles, his gaze rose to her face, hoping for at least some sign of remorse. Instead, to his absolute fury, her eyes were sparkling with childlike excitement. His breath caught in his throat. Her sheer delight was almost contagious.

“Guess what?” she asked breathlessly, oblivious to his foul-tempered mood. She'd had the most wonderful morning. It had made her forget all about the uncomfortable evening she'd spent under the hopeful eyes of her parents. Today's sky had been a shimmering, cloudless blue. The recently tilled and planted fields were turning green and had the most marvelous, earthy smell. It had been absolute heaven to drive along and look at the change that spring had brought to the landscape. It had been all she could do to resist the urge to stop and pick wildflowers, but an image of Tate's disapproving scowl had kept her speeding along the country roads.

“Where have you been?” Tate practically shouted at her, making her wince, even though she'd been half expecting such a tirade.

She decided it would be better to ignore the question and his tone. He'd obviously had a bad morning, but, once he'd heard about hers, that grumpy mood would vanish.

“Wait until I tell you about this terrific new antique shop I found,” she announced enthusiastically. “The owner used to be a teacher, just like me, and he spent his summers driving around the country hunting for antiques. Now that he's retired, he decided to open a shop in his home. And he had the most marvelous old dresser. It's a mess right now. It must have fifteen layers of paint on it, but the construction is solid—I think it's cherry—and it has the most beautiful beveled mirror. I'm having it picked up tomorrow. I can hardly wait to get to work on it. Oh, Tate, wait until you see it.”

She gazed up at him expectantly, her smile wavering ever so slightly as she noticed that his scowl had not vanished as she'd hoped. “Is something wrong? I thought you'd be excited.”

“You know I don't give a damn about antique dressers and beveled mirrors,” he snapped. “When you make an appointment for two o'clock, you're supposed to arrive at two o'clock. Not two-forty-five.”

“Ohhh. So that's it. Well, I'm here now, aren't I?” she said brightly, flashing him another brilliant smile and sitting down. The man definitely needed to get his priorities in order. In fact that was what had troubled her all last night. He was so single-minded. He didn't have an impulsive bone in his very attractive body.

To make matters worse, he fit in so neatly with her family and, much as she loved them, they weren't wildly impulsive either. More than anything they wanted to see her settled down with someone like Tate. If her parents had their way, they'd offer him a dowry just to reassure themselves that he'd take her on. She'd seen that thank-goodness-we've finally-found-someone look in their eyes even if Tate had been oblivious to it. He'd been so busy talking about strip zoning or something equally boring that he hadn't even noticed her mother practically measuring him for a tuxedo.

“Victoria,” Tate began sternly, then sighed with frustration when he realized there was nothing he could say that would change her. “Oh, never mind. Let's get this over with.”

But instead of proceeding in the brisk, businesslike manner he had in mind, Tate found that attempting to conduct a serious interview with Victoria was like trying to keep a toy train on a crooked track. She kept veering off in crazy, unexpected directions that at first infuriated, then delighted him. He listened raptly to one of her wild stories about leading her entire class of students in an all-night sit-in in the school cafeteria to give them a firsthand experience in Thoreau's concept of civil disobedience.

“What were you protesting?”

“The fact that they'd stopped serving hamburgers and fries.”

“You staged a sit-in over hamburgers and French fries?”

“When you were a teenager, could you live without your daily ration of a burger, fries and a milk shake?”

“I can still live without them.”

“I should have known,” she said with a shake of her head. She studied him closely for several seconds, then smiled slowly. “Do you realize you haven't asked me a single dull question for the last half hour?”

“I haven't, have I?” he asked, his startled expression making her chuckle.

“It's wonderful,” she told him approvingly.

“You won't think it's so wonderful when you have to go to court because I did a lousy job of finishing this audit and getting you off the hook.”

“And the only way to do that is to ask boring questions?”

Tate nodded. “It would also help if I could get some straight answers.”

“My answers are straight. I would never lie to you,” she huffed.

“I'm not talking about lying. I'm talking about wandering all over the place with your answers until I'm so confused I find myself agreeing with you.”

“Didn't it ever occur to you I might be right?”

“Not really.”

“Thank you very much,” she said, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. She'd thought for a moment that Tate had actually approved of her. Instead, he'd only been laughing at her again. Well, that was just fine. She'd amuse him for another hour or so, straighten out this ridiculous mess, and then she'd drive home. That would be the end of it.

Except it wouldn't be. Something about this man appealed to her. Maybe it was nothing more than the crusader in her wanting to cure him of his stodginess and to discover if he had the stuff to be a true romantic hero. She sighed, wishing that was all there was to it. The real truth was that her suddenly traitorous body apparently didn't give a damn if he had the mind of a computer, as long as it could be held in those muscular arms and feel those sparks going off inside. She'd answer his ridiculous questions from now until doomsday just to reexperience the incredible feelings he aroused in her with one sizzling glance from those intense brown eyes. Right now those eyes were filled with laughter.

“You ready to try again?” he asked.

Victoria nodded reluctantly. “Fire away.”

“I know I'm going to hate myself for asking this one, but explain to me how this contribution to somebody named Jeannie qualifies as charity.”

Victoria couldn't help grinning at Tate's expression. He seemed to be holding his breath, obviously hoping for something he would consider a rational explanation. Well, this time she had one.

“Oh, that,” she said airily. “Well, Jeannie is this friend of mine, who's trying to make it as an artist. You'll have to meet her sometime. She does ceramics. They're really quite special. She uses the loveliest blues and greens and grays.” She paused thoughtfully, her lips pursed. “I can't quite figure out how she manages to get those shades, though I've watched and watched.”