didn’t mind looking at kid photos- really-but he did wonder why parents always assumed he wanted to see them. “Cute kids.” He looked them over, then handed the photographs back to both women.
The conversation around him turned to the speeches he’d missed by arriving late, and he took the opportunity to check out Jane’s dress. The front scooped low over her small breasts, and he’d bet that if she hunched her shoulders a bit, he could see down the front. The room was hot, yet her nipples poked out like she was in a deep freeze.
“Luc,” Marie said, pulling his attention away from Jane’s dress. He looked over his shoulder at his sister. “Do you know where the rest rooms are?”
“I know,” Jane answered for him. “Follow me. I’ll take you.” With her high shoes, Jane was about the same height as Marie. “On the way, you can tell me all your brother’s deep dark secrets,” she added as they walked away.
He figured he was safe, since Marie didn’t know any of his secrets. Deep dark or otherwise. The two were quickly swallowed within the crowd, and when he turned back, Mae and Georgeanne excused themselves and he was left staring at Darby.
Darby spoke first. “I saw the way you were looking at Jane. She’s not your type.”
He brushed aside his jacket and stuck his hand in his pocket. “What type is that?”
“A rink bunny.”
Luc never went with rink bunnies, and he wasn’t so sure he had a type anymore. Not when he could look at Jane Alcott and wonder what she’d do if he pulled her into a linen closet and kissed off her red lipstick. If he ran his fingers down her spine and slid his hand around the front and cupped her small breast. Of course, he could never do that. Not with Jane. “What’s it to you?”
“Jane and I are friends.”
“Aren’t you the same guy who called and asked me to talk her into taking her job back?”
“That was business. If you mess with her, she could lose her job. Permanently. I’d be really pissed off if you did something to hurt her.”
“Are you threatening me?” Luc looked down into Darby’s pale face and almost developed some respect for the guy.
“Yes.”
Luc smiled. Maybe Darby wasn’t the dickless wonder he’d always thought. The band struck its first chords and Luc walked away. The sort of jazz crap that got on his nerves filled the room and he wove his way to the man of the hour, Hugh Miner. John Kowalsky joined them, and they talked hockey, discussing the Chinooks’ chances of winning the cup that year.
“If the team stays healthy,” Hugh predicted, “we have a good shot at the cup.”
“A sniper wouldn’t hurt either,” the Wall added.
Their conversation turned to what they’d both been up to since retirement and Hugh pulled a wallet out of the back pocket of his trousers and flipped it open. “This is Nathan.” Luc didn’t bother telling him that he’d already seen the photograph.
Chapter 9
Rock Head Move: Dumb Move
Jane dried her hands with a paper towel and tossed it in the garbage. She looked in the mirror above the sink and hardly recognized herself. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing.
She opened the little purse she’d borrowed from Caroline and pulled out a tube of red lip gloss. Marie joined her at the sink, and Jane studied Luc’s sister as she washed her hands. Brother and sister looked nothing alike, except that their eyes were the same shade of blue.
Earlier, when she’d turned and seen Luc with such a young girl, she’d been shocked. Her first thought had been that he should be arrested, but then he’d shocked her further a moment later when he’d introduced his
“I’m not good at this,” Jane confessed as she leaned forward and smeared the gloss on her mouth. Before the banquet, Caroline had put some sort of semipermanent color on her lips, and all Jane had to do was reapply the gloss. She thought she’d done a good job, but she had no experience and wasn’t certain. “Tell me the truth. Do my lips look messy?”
“No.”
“Huge?” She had to admit that getting this made up was kind of fun. Not something she would want to do every day, though. Or even very often.
“No.” Marie dropped the paper towel in the trash. “I like your dress.”
“I got it at Nordstrom.”
“Me too!”
She handed Marie the gloss. “My friend helped me pick it out. I’m not very good with color.”
“I picked mine out, but Luc bought it.”
If that was the case, she wondered why Luc let his sister buy a dress that was too small. Jane might not be a slave to fashion, but even she could see it. “That was very nice of him.” Through the mirror, she watched Marie coat her lips a bit too much. “Do you live in Seattle?”
“Yep, I live with Luc.”
Shock number three of the evening. “Really? That must be a flaming hell. Are you being punished for something?”
“No, my mom died a month and a half ago.”
“Oh, no.” Jane’s chest squeezed. “I’m so sorry. I was trying to be funny and I said something insensitive. I feel like such an ass.”
“It’s okay.” Marie gave Jane half a smile. “And living with Luc isn’t
Jane took back her gloss and turned to face Marie. What was there to say? Nothing. She tried anyway. “My mother died when I was six. It’s been twenty-four years, but I know…” she paused, searching for the right word. There wasn’t one. “I know the hole it leaves in your heart.”
Marie nodded and she looked down at her shoes. “Sometimes I still can’t believe she’s gone.”
“I know how you feel.” Jane dropped the tube back in her purse and put her arm around Marie’s shoulders. “If you ever want to talk about it with someone, you can talk to me.”
“That might be okay.”
Tears filled the corners of Marie’s eyes and Jane gave her a little squeeze. It had been twenty-four years, but Jane clearly recalled the emotions that were so close to the surface. “But not tonight. Tonight we’re going to have fun. Earlier I met some of Hugh Miner’s nephews. They’re here from Minnesota and I think they’re your age.”
Marie dabbed at her eyes with her fingers. “Are they hot?”
Jane thought about that. If she were Marie’s age, she might think so, but she wasn’t, and thinking teenage boys were hot made her uncomfortable. She could almost hear the song “Mrs. Robinson” in her ears. “Well, they live on a farm,” she began as they left the bathroom. “I think they milk cows.”
“Yuck.”
“No, that means they’re buff, and as far as I could tell, they don’t smell like a barn.”
“That’s good.”
“Very good.” Jane looked across her shoulder at Marie. “I like your eye shadow. It’s very sparkly.”
“Thanks. You can borrow it sometime.”
“I think I’m a little old for eye glitter.” Jane dropped her arm as they wove their way through the crowd. She found Hugh Miner’s nephews looking out over the city and introduced Marie to the two teenage boys. Jack and Mac Miner were seventeen-year-old twins and were dressed in matching tuxedos with scarlet cummerbunds. They had spiky crew cuts and big brown eyes, and Jane had to admit that they were kind of cute.
“What grade are you in?” Mac, or perhaps Jack, asked Marie.
