Shadows At Sunset - Anne Stuart [69]
“We’ve seen enough, honeybunch. Allow them some privacy. Besides, I’m willing to bet you he’s not going to be able to get within touching distance for days.”
“Wrong,” she said. “They’ll be in bed by midnight. Dawn at the latest.”
“Are you crazy? You saw her reaction after last night,” Ted argued.
“I know my sex.”
“That you do,” Ted murmured.
She gave him a mock glare. “I mean I know my gender. She won’t be able to resist him. If it’s before midnight we might even be able to watch.”
“Behave yourself, darling!” Ted said.
“Don’t be a prude—we’ve been watching people have sex here for almost fifty years. It might be nice to see people do it with love for a change.”
“You think the two of them are in love? Precious, you are naive!” Ted murmured.
“No, darling, I’m right. Call it my woman’s intuition.”
“They hate each other.”
“That’s always a sure sign.”
“You did too many screwball comedies, honeybunch. When people hate each other it usually means they hate each other.”
“You’ll see,” she said with a smug smile. “Let’s go dancing.”
And he lifted her hand to his mouth and kissed it.
16
The living room was a cavernous expanse of light and shadows, but Jilly could still make out Coltrane sprawled on the sofa, exactly where she’d left him the night before.
At least this time he was fully dressed, but the candlelight was even dimmer than the lightbulb that had illuminated the scene last night.
She would have backed up, disappeared, but even from such a distance he saw her, and she was torn between pride and panic. Roofus had no such qualms. He bounded across the room, his paws skittering on the parquet floor until he came to a sliding stop against the sofa, greeting Coltrane like a starving man at a banquet.
“Jilly!” Dean came up beside her, immaculately dressed in a white linen suit. He looked at her and sniffed. “You’re dressing for dinner, of course.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m not going to be here for dinner,” she lied instinctively. “I have other plans.”
“You can’t!” Dean said in the distressed voice she could never say no to. “I’ve gone to such pains to arrange this all. If you hadn’t taken off at the crack of dawn I would have given you more notice. You weren’t answering your cell phone, either. Really, Jilly, it’s most inconsiderate of you not to think about the rest of us. I needed to get in touch with you! What if there’d been an emergency?”
Jilly softened. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I wasn’t worried. I know you’re perfectly able to take care of yourself. But I went to a lot of trouble for this little dinner and I’m counting on you to do your part.”
She glanced across the room toward Coltrane, but he was busy scratching Roofus’s head, seemingly oblivious to their conversation. She wasn’t fooled. Doubtless he was absorbing every word, the snake.
“What dinner party?” she asked warily.
“Just family. And Coltrane, of course, since he’s part of our happy household right now. Very low-key and relaxed. I’ve had Emilio’s cater it, to make things easier.”
“Fine,” she said shortly.
“I charged it to you, of course, since it’s your month for household expenses.”
It had been her month for taking care of the household expenses since 1998. “Fine,” she said again, too weary to argue. “Let’s get it over with.” She started into the living room, but Dean caught her arm.
“Aren’t you going to change into something a little more…festive? You look like something out of LL Bean. Surely you have some standards.”
Jilly glanced down at her faded jeans, bare feet and baggy sweatshirt and shrugged. Her hair hung in one long, thick braid down her back, her face was burnished by the late autumn sun and the wind off the ocean, and she didn’t give a damn. She wasn’t about to dress up for Coltrane’s admiration.
“If this dinner is so laid-back then it shouldn’t matter what I’m wearing,” she said, moving past him into the living room before she could change her mind. With anyone else she might have worried that Dean was matchmaking, but in the case of her brother