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Bantam
December 2003
Featuring: Rana Ramsey; Trent Gamblin
226 pages
ISBN: 0553576054
Paperback (reprint)
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Chapter One
She met him in the hallway on her way down to dinner.
He was the last kind of surprise she expected. His impact
on her was startling. Several things happened at once. She
drew in a quick, sudden breath. Her heart slammed into her
ribs. She flattened herself against the wall.
"Hi. Did I scare you?" he asked with a smile.
His teeth were white and straight. His easy grin lit up a
darkly tanned, weathered face. When his lips tilted up at
the corners, one dark brow tipped down, while the other
arched high, as though reaching for the wavy lock of sable
brown hair that had fallen across his forehead.
It was an intriguing smile. Arresting. Sexy. Her heart was
pounding abnormally.
"N-no," she stammered.
"Didn't Aunt Ruby tell you she was getting a new boarder?"
"Yes, but I . . ."
She didn't finish. She couldn't very well say, "Yes, but I
pictured a doddering elderly man with a pipe and cardigan,
not one whose shoulders practically span the hallway." She
had expected the new boarder to have a benevolent face
with a pleasant smile. Not one that made her think of
daredevils and ne'er-do-wells.
Still smiling, he set down the box of records and tapes he
had been holding under his right arm and extended his hand
to her. "Trent Gamblin."
Rana stared at his hand for an embarrassing length of time
before laying hers against it, not quite clasping it, and
muttering, "I'm Miss Ramsey."
When she dared to raise her eyes to his, his smile had
deepened. She suspected that he was smiling with derision
at her primness.
"Do you needany assistance, Mr. Gamblin?" she asked
starchily as she drew her hand back.
"I think I can handle it, Miss Ramsey." His face was
solemn now, but the mirth was still twinkling in his eyes.
They were the color of coffee liqueur, dark and rich and
fluid.
Slightly irked that he apparently found her so amusing,
she pried herself away from the wall and stood up
straight. "Then if you'll excuse me, I'll go on down for
dinner. Ruby gets cross if I'm late for meals."
"Guess I'd better hurry down too. Left or right?"
"Pardon?"
"Which apartment is mine? The one on the left or the one
on the right?"
"The left."
"The right one is yours?"
"Yes."
"I sure hope I can keep that straight, Miss Ramsey. I'd
hate to come stumbling into your room some night by
mistake." His mischievous eyes traveled over her. "No
telling what might happen."
He was laughing at her! "I'll see you downstairs," she
said coolly. She marched past him, forcing him to press
himself up against the wall to let her pass. But he didn't
press quite far enough. As she went past him, her clothes
dragged against the front of his. He did it on purpose, of
course. She could feel his arrogant smile at her back.
If only he knew, she fumed silently as she took the
stairs. Miss Ramsey could dazzle him, freeze him in his
tracks, wipe that tomcat grin right off his smug face-
Rana paused on the third step from the bottom. Why was she
even entertaining such thoughts? She hadn't cared about
her appearance for months. All that was behind her. Why
now, after meeting the new boarder in Mrs. Ruby Bailey's
house, was she even thinking of the Rana she had been six
months before?
She disliked herself for it. She had cut herself off
completely from her former life. She wasn't ready to
resume it, not even temporarily, in order to put the
conceited Trent Gamblin in his place.
Becoming the internationally known Rana again would bring
back all the self-doubt and pain that went with the single
name. She had given up her celebrity status. For the time
being she didn't want it back. She was enjoying the
anonymity of her current life too much. She liked being
simply Miss Ramsey, an undistinguished resident of a
typical Galveston boardinghouse.
Ruby Bailey, however, was about as atypical a landlady as
one could imagine. When Rana entered the dining room, Ruby
was lighting the candles she had placed in the center of
the table. In honor of the new arrival, she had gone to
special pains with the centerpiece this evening.
"Damn!" she exclaimed, fanning out the match. "I almost
caught my nail polish on fire." She inspected the crimson
enamel on her nails.
Her age had never been firmly established, but Rana had
calculated that it must be beyond seventy, judging from
the dated references Ruby occasionally let slip in her
colorful dialogue. She was hardly what Rana had pictured
when she had responded to the ad in the Houston newspaper
advertising an apartment for lease in Galveston.
With the directions Ruby had given her during a brief
telephone interview, Rana had located the house without
difficulty. Her excitement could barely be contained when
she pulled up to the address. The Victorian house, built
in Galveston's heyday, had withstood hurricanes as well as
the ravages of time. It was situated on a tree-shaded
street among other recently restored homes. For Rana, who
had lived for the past decade in Manhattan's high rises,
it was like stepping into another century. She was
delighted. She only hoped she and Ruby Bailey would hit it
off.
The landlady's hair was white, but it hadn't been pulled
into the classic grandmother's bun, as Rana had imagined.
Ruby wore it short and curly, cut in a surprisingly
fashionable style. She wasn't matronly plump, either,
another misconception on Rana's part, but whipcord lean.
Her attire, far from conservative, consisted of a pair of
jeans and a sweater the color of the vibrant red geraniums
that bloomed in the concrete urns on the front porch.
"You could do with a good meal or two." That blunt
statement was the first thing Ruby had said to Rana upon
giving her an inspection with busy, no-nonsense brown eyes
that could have snapped a longshoreman to attention. "Come
on in. We'll start with sugar cookies and herbal tea. Do
you like herbal tea? I swear by it. It's good for
everything from toothache to constipation. Of course, if
you eat the balanced meals I plan on cooking for you, you
won't ever be constipated."
And that, it seemed, was that. Ruby considered the
apartment on her second floor leased.
Rana would come to learn that Ruby's cup of herbal tea was
sometimes liberally laced with Jack Daniel's, especially
in the evening after dinner. Rana forgave her friend that
particular idiosyncrasy, the same way she forgave Ruby the
frown she made no effort to disguise as she looked up now
and spotted Rana.
"I was hoping you'd gussy up a bit tonight. Your hair's
such a pretty auburn color. Did you ever think of pulling
it back away from your face a tad?"
Rana, darling, your cheekbones are to die for! Show them
off, love. I see all this glorious hair, sweeping back,
big, big volumes of it, like a mane surrounding your face
and cascading down your back. Shake your head, darling.
See! Oh God, positively to die for! Every tacky little
beauty shop in the country will soon be advertising the
Rana Look.
Rana smiled at the memory of the famous hairdresser's
words the first time Morey sent her to him. "No, Ruby, I
like it like this." Ruby had insisted on being addressed
by her first name, because she said being referred to as
Mrs. Bailey made her feel old. "The table looks lovely
tonight."
"Thank you," Ruby said impatiently as she spied a smear of
paint on Rana's sleeve. "You have time to change, dear,"
she ventured tactfully.
"Does it matter what I'm wearing?"
Ruby sighed with resignation. "I suppose it doesn't. You'd
only put on another of your horrid baggy combinations,
none of which I'd be caught dead in, and I have about
three decades on you. I'm sure, Miss Ramsey, that you
could make yourself more attractive if only you'd try."
First names didn't apply to her guests.
"I'm not interested in my appearance."