Mercury Rising. Christine Rimmer

For asking me.” The words came out flat, without intonation. “I’m sorry. But no. I can’t go out with you.”

      He didn’t look surprised. “Can’t?” He was mocking her.

      She couldn’t blame him for his scorn. Can’t, in this case, was a coward’s word. And a lie. “I won’t. I won’t go out with you.”

      “Why not?”

      She shut her eyes, dragged in a long breath, then looked at him again. “Won’t you just take what I said? Take no thank you, and let it be?”

      He smiled then, more or less. At least the corners of his mouth hitched upward. “I will, if that’s all I can get. It’s not like I really have a choice. But you’re honest, or you try to be, and—”

      “How do you know that?”

      “Does it matter?”

      It did matter, a lot, for some reason. “I’d like to know how you know that about me, that’s all.”

      “Jane. How could I not know?”

      “You mean you’ve been watching me.”

      “What? That’s news? It offends you, that I like to look at you, that I listen when people talk about you?”

      “Who? Who talks about me?”

      “Oh, come on. Your buddy Celia’s married to Aaron. It’s a story she likes to tell, how she fell in love with my brother and you told her to be honest, to let him know how she felt, that honesty was always the best policy. Is that right? Did that happen?”

      She nodded, feeling vaguely foolish for making a big deal out of not very much. “Yes. All right. It happened.”

      “And your other friend, Jillian, she said Celia should wear sexier clothes and brighter colors, make him notice her as a woman first before she told him she was gone on him.”

      Jane couldn’t help smiling at the memory. “And Celia did both—told the truth and bought a few new clothes.”

      “Yeah. And look at them now.”

      “Yes,” she said carefully. “They’re very happy.” They lived in Las Vegas. Aaron was part owner and CEO of High Sierra Resort and Casino, on the Strip. Celia was his secretary and personal assistant—and now, his wife as well.

      Cade said, “And I haven’t forgotten what I asked in the first place. Did you think I would?”

      Yes. All right. Maybe she had. She regarded him warily, her mouth firmly shut.

      He asked again, “Why won’t you go out with me?”

      Jane looked through the bay window at her backyard, wishing she was out there, deadheading mums and geraniums, digging up more dandelions, working that long, tenacious central root up out of the soil. Anything but this, having to tell this man no when her body and her wayward heart wouldn’t stop crying yes.

      “Well?” he prompted.

      She looked at him again and she spoke with defiance. “You know why. You’re from town. You know about me. I had a bad marriage. A really bad marriage.”

      “I didn’t mention marriage, Jane.”

      “Well, of course you didn’t.”

      “Did you want me to?”

      “Did you plan to?”

      He grunted. “No. As a matter of fact, marriage wasn’t what I had in mind.”

      “Exactly. And that’s another reason for me not to go out with you. We want completely different things from a relationship.”

      “Do we?” His eyes said things she shouldn’t let herself hear.

      “Nothing is going to happen between us,” she said, slowly. Firmly. With much more conviction than she actually felt. “What I want from a relationship, you’re not willing to give.”

      He lifted an eyebrow at her. “You’re saying you want to get married again?”

      “Yes, I do. And I want a good marriage this time. When it comes to a man, I’m looking for an equal—an equal and a best friend.”

      That fine mouth curved, ever so slightly, in another one of those almost-smiles. “Well, all right. Let’s be friends.”

      She did not smile back, not even marginally. “You’re not taking me seriously.”

      “Yes, I am. You want a man to be your friend. Fine. Let’s be friends.”

      It was a trap. She knew it. They’d play at being friends. And eventually, they’d make each other crazy enough that they’d give in to what was really driving this. And she should be insulted, that he would sit here in her kitchen and pretend to offer friendship when they both knew what he really wanted from her.

      But she wasn’t insulted. She was too excited to be insulted. She just wanted to say yes—Yes, yes, yes. Whatever he wanted, however he wanted it.

      “No.” She had to push the word out of her mouth. “I won’t be your friend.”

      His long hand cupped his glass of tea. He stroked, wiping the moisture clinging to the side of the glass, so it slid down and pooled on the table. “Why not?”

      She looked away from that stroking hand, made a low, tight sound of disbelief. “Because I really don’t think that my friendship is what you’re after.”

      She was looking at his hand again. Slowly he turned the glass in a circle, smearing the puddle of moisture at the base of it. “You don’t, huh?”

      She yanked her gaze upward and glared at him. “No, I don’t. Are you going to tell me I’ve got it all wrong?”

      There it was again, the smile that didn’t quite happen. “Let me put it this way. I’ll try anything once, friendship included.”

      She felt vaguely ridiculous, to keep on with this, to make all this effort to be truthful when she didn’t feel truthful, when she knew he was teasing her, making fun of what she said. But she did keep on. Because however pointless it felt to tell him these things, she believed they were things that had to be said. “I want marriage, a good marriage. I want a steady man, a man who’ll stick by me, a man who’ll be true.”

      He had that golden head tipped to the side, as if he were considering whether or not to say what was in his mind.

      “What?” she demanded. “Just say it. Say it now.”

      He lifted one hard shoulder in a shrug. “Okay. How long’s it been, since Rusty died? You were, what, twenty?”

      She had to clear her throat before she could answer. “Twenty-one. It’s been six years.”

      “You run into any steady men, since then? Any true, good men?”

      “Yes. Yes, of course, I have.”

      “You dated a few of them, of those good guys, those solid guys?”

      “That’s right. I did.”

      “So what happened? How come you’re not with one of them now?”

      Silently she cursed him. For knowing her secret truth, for hitting it right on the mark. “It didn’t work out, that’s all.”

      “You’re looking away again. Let’s have some truth, Jane. Let’s have it out straight.”

      She snapped her gaze back to collide with his and she muttered between clenched teeth, “You’re being purposely cruel. I’ve had enough of that, in my life. Cruelty. From a man.”

      He leaned her way, just a little, enough that she felt him, encroaching, not quite enough to make her move back. “Listen,” he said in a low voice. “I’m not him. Not Rusty. Yeah, all right, I’ve had my run-ins with the law.