She tried again to loosen his grip on her wrist, but he held firm.

'They don't? How do they talk to her?'

Now Diana was genuinely scared. Her apartment was a long way from the main house. If she yelled for help, no one would hear her.

'Let me guess,' Garrison Ladd continued, still holding her captive.

'They'd probably say something gross, like 'Fall down on your back, honey, and spread your legs.'' At once hot, humiliating tears stung Diana's cheeks. This was the very thing she had hoped to escape by running away from Joseph, by running away from home. Those words, those exact same words, were ones her father had shouted at Iona in one of his drunken, raging tirades when neither one of them knew their daughter was in the house.

Too young to realize what was going on, Diana knew no words for what her father had done to her mother. She had hidden in the closet and waited until it was over, crying and praying that her father would die, that God would strike max Cooper dead on the spot, but, of course, He hadn't.

And now, here she was faced with those very words again, and with whatever else came with those words.

She squared her shoulders and prepared to fight. Running away hadn't done her any good if the words had found her anyway, searched her out here in Eugene in her own apartment. Maybe destiny wasn't something you could escape by running from one end of the state to the other.

but she sure as hell didn't have to go quietly.

'Let me go,' she snapped. 'You're hurting me.'

'Not until you kiss me, Liza.'

Liza! She felt as though he'd slapped her. Who the hell was Liza? An ex-girlfriend maybe? Had Gary Ladd mixed her up with someone else?

'My name's not Liza. Let me go!'

He smiled and effortlessly pulled her to him until her taut body was against his chest. 'Haven't you ever heard' of Liza Doolittle, Liza?

She's a garbageman's daughter, too, you know. And my name is Henry Higgins, so what are You going to wear to the ball, my dear?'

He kissed her then, quickly, briefly--a brotherly kiss not even a garbageman's daughter could fault him for-and led her to the closet, where he began rummaging through her clothing, looking for an appropriate dress.

The rush of relief and gratitude that swept over Diana almost brought her to her knees. He hadn't meant her any harm. It had all been a game, genuine teasing. She wasn't used to that, and she didn't know how to handle it.

-Here we are.' He held up the blue taffeta semiformal Diana's mother had made for her to wear to the prom.

'This should do nicely.'

Gathering everything she needed into a bundle, Diana hurried into the bathroom to change, while Garrison Ladd lounged comfortably on her bigger-than-twin-but-less-than full-sized bed. The idea of him sitting there big as you please made her blush. Her mother had warned her about that, too, about letting men sit on your bed, but then what did her mother know?

As soon as Diana was dressed, they drove to Garrison's place, a two-bedroom apartment with a pool, emptied now for the winter. He invited her up, but she wasn't taking any more chances. She stayed in the car while he went inside to change. He came out wearing a tuxedo-his very own tuxedo. Except for Walter Brennan, maybe, no one in Joseph, Oregon, owned his own tuxedo.

They went to the hotel for a dinner of medium-rare steaks, lush salads, and huge baked potatoes complete with sour cream and chives. Feeling like Cinderella, Diana couldn't help noticing that Garrison Ladd paid more for that single steak dinner than she'd earn from a full week's worth of work, but that didn't keep her from enjoying herself They laughed at anyone and everyone, including one tearful waitress who acted as though it were inappropriate for anybody to be out on the town having such a gloriously good time with John F. Kennedy not yet in his grave.

Diana Lee Cooper didn't know when she'd ever had so much fun. She laughed until she cried, and then she laughed some more, and all the while the part of her that had never laughed before was falling more and more in love by the minute.

Finally, at midnight, she'd had enough. 'I've got to go home and get some sleep,' she announced. 'I've got newspapers to deliver in the morning.'

'No way,' he told her. 'I'm not letting you out of my sight. We'll stay up all night. When it's time to deliver your damn newspapers, I'll help you. How does that sound?'

At five O'clock in the morning, in a driving rain, the two of them delivered the black-banded newspapers that announced President John F. Kennedy's death. Garrison Ladd drove her around the route in his VW-Bus. Diana, barefoot but still wearing her blue dress, hopped in and out of the bus to Send the papers sailing through the air.

Gary Ladd was impressed that she never missed a single porch.

Afterward, back in her apartment, cold and wet and still laughing, she let him help her Out of her soaked clothes.

The wet taffeta was ruined, but Diana didn't care. She didn't look at it as he unzipped it and let it slip to the floor In a sodden heap.

Nothing mattered except this wonderful man she was with who had the ability to make her laugh and feel beautiful at the same time.

She barely noticed as he unfastened her bra and slipped her garter belt and panties down to the floor. She

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