coat.
Now what, she wondered.
Nick slid in behind the wheel and started the car. He looked across the darkness at her. “A long time,” he said, “since anyone’s tried to ditch me.” He sounded amused, not angry.
“I’m sorry. It’s been a bad night.”
“My fault,” he said. “I picked up on your reluctance, but I persisted, anyway. I should have backed off, I realize that now.” He turned on the headlights and windshield wipers, and backed the car out of its space. “I suppose I can lay some of the blame on conditioning. So often, women play games. They make a show of pretending not to want something, while in point of fact they do want it.” He drove slowly toward the road. “Apparently, they take some sort of bizarre delight in watching men struggle to win their consent.”
“I guess that happens,” Alison said. “I suppose I’ve done it myself. It isn’t always a game, though. Sometimes, you just don’t know what you want. You could go either way.”
Nick glanced at her. “Is that how it was with you, tonight?”
“Pretty much.”
He stopped at the edge of the parking lot. “Which way?”
“Right.”
He waited for a car to pass, then swung onto the road. “Therefore, you’re suggesting that a different approach on my part might have succeeded.”
Alison smiled. “Could be.”
“I should’ve played hard to get.”
“Maybe.”
“Damn it,” he muttered. “I’m always striking out.”
Alison found herself liking him better. Without the cool posing, he seemed like a different person. “Maybe next time at bat,” she said, “you’ll do better.”
He sighed.
“A left at the next corner.”
He nodded. After making the turn, he said, “Anyway, I’m glad we met. Even if I did make a mess of things.”
“It’s not your fault. It’s me.”
“No. You’re terrific. God knows, the way I was acting
“You can let me out here,” she said.
He swung his car to the curb, stopped it, and set the emergency brake. Leaning forward, he peered out her window. “You live in that house?”
“Upstairs. With a couple of roommates. Thanks a lot for the ride.”
“No problem. I’m glad we…had this chance to talk. God only knows why, but it makes me feel a little better about things.”
“Me, too.” Leaning toward him, Alison slipped her fingers behind his head. His face was a dim blur in the darkness, moving closer. She pressed her mouth gently to his, then eased away. “See you around,” she whispered. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“You in the student directory?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Me, too. You going to call?”
“You bet.”
Then Alison was out of the car and striding through the rain. She knew that she had almost stayed. She was glad that she hadn’t. She felt lonely and hurt, but strong. She had lost Evan. Maybe she had made a new friend tonight, but that didn’t matter so much as knowing that she had won against herself.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dana woke up again, cramped in the backseat of her Volkswagen. This time, her right arm had fallen asleep. Before, it had been a leg, a buttock, a foot. No matter what her position, one part or another of her body got its circulation cut off.
Right now, she was lying on her side with her knees bent, using her right arm for a pillow. The arm had no feeling at all. With a struggle, she managed to sit up. She shook her arm, grimacing as the numbness became an aching tingle. The tingle was like a thousand stabbing needles. But soon it went away and her arm felt almost normal.
She reached to the floor and picked up her travel clock. Pushing a button on top, she lighted its face. The digital numbers showed 2:46 A.M.
The alarm had been set for 3:00 A.M.
She wouldn’t be needing it.
When she’d set the alarm, she hadn’t realized that she would be waking up every fifteen or twenty minutes.
She flicked a switch sideways to deactivate the alarm, then put the clock down.
The rain still pounded down making an endless rumble hitting her car.
Might as well go ahead now, Dana thought.
She began to shiver.
It’ll be fabulous, she told herself.
She didn’t want to go out in the rain. But this was too good an opportunity to miss, and she’d already gone to so much trouble. What’s a little rain?
I’ll get soaked.
But I’ll scare the hell out of Roland.
Besides, he had stuck it out this long. Left alone, he might very well make it till morning.
Dana didn’t want to lose the bet.
The money was no big deal, but the whole idea was to humiliate and destroy Roland. If he didn’t come running out of the restaurant in terror…
I’ll do it.
She struggled into her poncho, flipped up the hood to cover her head, and left the car. She shut the door quietly.
The rain pattered on the plastic sheet as she stepped to the front of her car and opened the trunk. She slipped the screwdriver and knit cap into her pockets, and clutched the five-pound sack to her belly underneath the poncho to keep it dry. Then she closed the trunk and headed for the restaurant.
If Roland is watching from a window, she thought, I’m sunk.
That wasn’t likely, though. If he was awake at this hour, he was probably hiding in a closet—and scared out of his gourd.
But not half as scared as he’ll be in a few minutes.
Dana crossed the parking lot at an angle.
She was pleased with herself. She’d made a pretty good show of being afraid of the restaurant, so Roland would never suspect a trick like this.
At the corner of the lot, she waded through some high grass to the restaurant wall. The grass was wet, soaking through her running shoes and the cuffs of her jeans.
She stayed close to the wall, heading for the back of the building, ducking under the windows.
There were no doors along this side of the restaurant. In the back, however, she found one. The upper portion had four sections of glass.
Dana crept up the wooden stairs and pressed her face to one of the panes. Dark in there. A lot darker than outside, but patches of the counters and floor were pale gray with light from the windows.
