Tall, Dark And Difficult. Patricia Coughlin

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СКАЧАТЬ As the happily married mother of a beautiful six-month-old daughter, Maryann considered it her duty to maneuver Rose into the same blissful state. She was forever finding another “perfectly nice man” for Rose, and Rose was forever refusing to cooperate. Having been married to one driven and demanding man for five years, she figured she had earned the right to be a little deranged on the subject.

      She might not have the whole Mars-Venus thing figured out, but she had learned to steer clear of a certain sort of man. The sort who didn’t know enough to take off his silly sunglasses when he stepped indoors. Not that it was a chronic problem—men who wore mirrored aviator shades usually only ventured into her shop when led on the invisible leash that some silicone-laden blonde had attached to his libido. Since there was nary a breast implant in sight, she couldn’t help wondering what Mr. Mirrors wanted.

      As if reading her mind, or her disapproving smirk, he removed the sunglasses and hooked them into the neck of his T-shirt. Rose quickly underscored too damn handsome on his growing list of faults, and cursed herself for responding to the genetically programmed urge to suck in her stomach and wonder if she had remembered to put on lipstick.

      Not that it mattered. He slid his gaze over her too quickly to notice she had lips. Clearly, he found her about as fascinating as the rack of vintage beaded purses by her side. Maybe less so.

      For Rose, his utter lack of interest came not as an insult—nor as a surprise, for that matter—but as a relief. She’d have liked to save time by informing him straight off that even though the word antiques appeared on the sign out front, she did not deal in rusty bayonets, Civil War memorabilia or vintage auto parts.

      She settled for “Good morning,” causing his gaze to settle on her directly for the first time.

      “Morning,” he replied.

      “May I help you with something, or are you just browsing?”

      The standard query caused one corner of his mouth to quirk. It was a very nice mouth, she noted, adding it to the list.

      “Browsing?” His cool gaze took in the shelves of sparkling Depression-era glass, baskets overflowing with freshly laundered vintage linens and, occupying center stage, her current pièce de résistance, an old white iron bed, dressed in a faded quilt and generations of loving wear and tear.

      “Hardly,” he muttered, with a blend of smug superiority and barely concealed disdain.

      Obviously, in spite of his attire, this was no common, garden-variety Neanderthal she was dealing with. This was the King of the Heap, Leader of the Pack, the infamous Number One Combo. She knew the type well. Arrogant and tactless, and, unless she missed her guess, served with a side order of cynicism. There was only one way to deal with a Number One. Ignore him.

      “I’m here to see the proprietor,” he announced, before she had the chance. “Miss Rose Davenport.”

      The way her name rolled off his tongue was the verbal equivalent of the look he’d just given her shop. Rose folded her arms and her chin came up.

      “I’m Rose Davenport.”

      That earned her a closer look—and a frown, something that seemed to come to him quite naturally. And fairly regularly, judging from the pattern of lines around his mouth. The man definitely needed to lighten up.

      “Do you have a mother, or maybe a grandmother, by that name?”

      “Afraid not. It’s me or nothing.”

      His eyes, a deep and distracting shade of blue, narrowed with impatience.

      “I’m looking for the Rose Davenport who was friends with Devora Fairfield,” he told her emphatically, as if he could get her to produce another Rose Davenport through sheer force of will. She’d wager the technique worked for him more often than not.

      “I heard you the first time, and the answer is the same. If you’re looking for Rose Davenport, I’m it.”

      He eyed her suspiciously. “You were friends with Devora?”

      “I sure was. Did you know Devora?”

      “She was my aunt,” he replied. “Great-aunt, actually.”

      It was her turn to take a closer look at him. The height…the jaw… Of course. “You’re Hollis.”

      “Griffin,” he countered with obvious irritation. “Just ‘Griff’ will do. Devora was the only one I allowed to call me Hollis.”

      “Allowed?” Rose couldn’t help arching her tawny brows as she struggled to reconcile the man before her with the spit-and-polished military officer she had encountered only once before, briefly and nearly two years ago.

      He shrugged. “Figuratively speaking, that is.”

      It was a rather terse acknowledgment of the fact that no one had ever “allowed” Devora Fairfield to do anything. The spirited spinster, whom Rose had been honored to call her friend, had invariably done and said precisely as she deemed right and proper and damn well pleased. Rose couldn’t decide if it was annoyance or grudging affection that hovered in Hollis Griffin’s voice when he spoke of his aunt, and it really didn’t matter.

      It had been no secret that Devora loved her nephew as if he were a child of her body and not simply her heart, and that was good enough for Rose. She immediately erased the mental list she’d been compiling. For Devora’s sake alone, she was prepared to befriend Hollis Griffin in the manner that came most naturally to her—utterly and enthusiastically.

      “Okay, ‘Griff’ it is.” Smiling warmly, she stepped closer to offer her right hand, and for the first time noticed the cane in his.

      “You probably don’t remember me,” she went on, concealing her surprise. “We met at Devora’s funeral service.”

      “I’m sorry, I don’t remember.” He slipped the cane under his arm with an ease that suggested he’d had it a while, and shook her hand.

      “That’s all right, I didn’t recognize you, either, without your uniform.”

      That seemed to irk him as much as being called Hollis had.

      “I’m retired from the Air Force,” he explained curtly.

      “I see,” said Rose, though she didn’t.

      Devora always sent her nephew a “care package” of goodies on his birthday, and Rose recalled that he was almost exactly five years older than she was, which would make him a few months shy of forty. A bit young for retirement. Especially since, according to his aunt, the man lived to fly; the more high risk the mission, the better. Devora worried about the danger inherent in his work, but she had also sung his praises at every opportunity. Rose’s understanding was that Griffin wasn’t merely a pilot, but an aviation junkie, as skilled working on a jet’s engine as he was at its controls. She added his early retirement to the cane and came up with a half-dozen questions she was smart enough not to ask.

      “It would be a wonder if you remember anyone you met that day,” she continued in an instinctive attempt to put him at ease. “All of Wickford was there, plus Devora’s old friends from as far away as Florida. I hope you know how beloved your aunt was around here, and how very much she is missed.”

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