Maybe Married

Like he’s wearing a halo, Dana thought grimly. I’ve never seen a better example of false advertising.

She surveyed the perfect tailoring of his suit with interest and had to admit a wisp of relief that he hadn’t shown up in blue jeans and a flannel shirt. Not that it mattered to her what he wore, she added hastily. Or how he presented himself to a crowd.

Barclay had hurried toward him, beaming, his hand extended. “Mr. Ferris,” he exclaimed. “How kind of you to honor us with your presence tonight. I hope your business meetings went well today.”

Zeke stepped forward. The halo vanished as the soft light of the drawing room fell across his face. “Call me Zeke,” Dana heard him say.

The alumnus cleared his throat, and she turned hastily back to him. “And that was the play which won the game?”

But the man wasn’t looking at her. He was staring at Zeke. “What’s so important about that young fella?” he demanded. “President’s hardly said a word to me all evening, but he falls all over him. Has he given a lot of money to the university, or something?”

“Not yet,” Dana said.

“Oh, I see. Howell’s trying to put the squeeze on him. Well, I suppose there’s never enough money.”

A man on Dana’s other side, a member of the university’s board of directors, said, “You can say that again. We need a new stadium, for one thing.”

Dana started to say that the last thing Zeke Ferris was likely to give the university was a sports stadium, but she stopped herself just in time. How could she know that, anyway? People changed—the Zeke Ferris she had known certainly hadn’t been the perfectly-tailored business suit type. “And we could use a new conference center,” she pointed out.

“Oh, well, I suppose if you’re interested in that sort of thing,” one of the men conceded.

She left the two of them discussing the university’s sports program and excused herself. But the party seemed to be taking care of itself at the moment; no one was standing alone, no one was looking forlorn, and no one seemed to be plunging into an argument. When a waiter passed, she swapped her sparkling water for a glass of champagne, and as she turned away she came face-to-face with Zeke Ferris.

She looked past him and saw that the alumnus who had told her all about the game he’d won had buttonholed Barclay as he crossed the room and was drawing him off into a corner. Even Barclay’s celebrated people skills might not get him out of that conversation in a hurry, she thought.

She’d almost forgotten how tall Zeke was. Even in her highest heels she’d always had to look up at him. Today, in the comfortable flats she habitually wore when she was in charge of a party, she seemed to look a very long way up into eyes bright as sapphires and filled with speculation.

“Dana,” he said softly. “Now this is a surprise.”

He had not said, she noted, that it was a pleasant surprise. And you can multiply that reaction times two, she thought. But she smiled and put out her hand. “Zeke.”

His grip was warm and firm, and he continued to hold her hand. “It’s been a long time.”

Not long enough.

He looked around the room and then back at her. “So what are you doing here?” he asked. “Are you faculty? Staff? Or are you finally going after that graduate degree you wanted so badly?”

“Staff,” she said coolly, and tugged her hand away. He let her fingers slip slowly out of his. She could feel her hands trembling, so she folded both of them around her cold glass to hide the telltale tremor. “I hope you’ll enjoy your visit here, Zeke. May I get you a drink?”

She watched a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. He might as well have said it, she thought, for it was quite clear what he was thinking. So that’s the way you’re going to play it.

“When you said you were staff,” Zeke murmured, “I thought you meant something administrative. It didn’t occur to me you might be just a waitress.”

Dana gritted her teeth. He’s trying to jab you into making a scene, she told herself.

Behind her, Barclay said smoothly, “I’m sure you misunderstood, Zeke.”

Dana had no trouble interpreting his tone of voice. No matter what a prospective donor said, it wasn’t to be taken as an insult—it was merely a misunderstanding.

“This is Dana Mulholland,” Barclay went on. “She’s not a waitress, she manages all the conferences and special events that the university hosts, and she’s been filling in at Baron’s Hill as well. In fact—”

Dana stepped quickly into the gap. “When we finish raising the money to build a new conference center, I’ll be in charge of it.”

“That’s not what I meant, my dear, but I know you’re right. Since it’s not quite official yet, I probably shouldn’t say anything at all. But it’s so hard to keep such happy news a secret.” Barclay’s tone was confidential, almost intimate.

Zeke’s eyes had narrowed, and only then did Dana realize that Barclay had draped an arm around her shoulders. She tried to shrug it off.

Barclay’s grip tightened. “I’ve asked Dana to marry me.”

Dana wanted to stuff her fingers in her ears on the theory that if she couldn’t hear what was going on, then it wasn’t really happening.

A member of the board of directors, standing nearby, cocked his head to one side. “Did I hear you right, Howell?” he asked. “You’re marrying Dana?”

“I wasn’t actually going to announce it just yet,” Barclay began.

He’s keeping his options open, Dana deduced. But the director didn’t pause. “Capital idea. I don’t mind telling you there was some hesitation on the part of the board when we hired you. We wondered if putting a young man, a bachelor, in that position was just asking for trouble. But marrying Dana—now that’s sensible. Like you’re taking the university to your bosom, eh? Making it your own.” He chortled at his own wit.

Dana’s face felt hot. Say something, she ordered herself. Deny it—and fast.

But that would mean contradicting Barclay in public and mortifying him in front of directors and alumni and faculty. Not that he didn’t deserve it—but if nothing else, self-preservation suggested she keep quiet for the moment and deal with the proposal later, when she could be alone with Barclay. Embarrassing the president of the university wasn’t the best way to improve her job security.

And why should she provide any more of a scene for Zeke Ferris’s entertainment, anyway? It was none of his business what she did.

“And marriage will help keep all the other women from circling around, too,” an alumnus added. “You must have been having to beat them off with a baseball bat this last year.”

Barclay’s self-deprecating smile and vague gesture of denial were so halfhearted, Dana thought, that he might as well have come straight out and said yes, the women found him so attractive that he was forced to defend himself.

The sheer arrogance of the man made Dana seethe with fury. She was drawing breath to set the record straight when she caught a glimpse of Zeke’s face. She blinked in astonishment. She hadn’t expected that he’d rush to congratulate them—but she also hadn’t expected to see pity in his eyes. Pity? How dare he pity her?

He looked at her levelly for a long moment. “Now that could present a problem,” he said finally. “Because she can’t.”

Dana’s temper snapped. Even though she had no intention of marrying Barclay Howell, the very idea of Zeke telling her she couldn’t was enough to make her spit nails. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Zeke, don’t try to lay down the law to me. There is absolutely no reason for you to have an opinion in the matter. Whether I get married or not has nothing to do with you.”

“Much as I hate to disagree with a lady—”

“You expect me to believe that piece of nonsense?”

He wasn’t looking at her, but at Barclay. “She can’t get married till her divorce is final.”

“Divorce?” Barclay said blankly.

Dana’s jaw dropped. “What? We took care of that years ago. You have absolutely no claim on me anymore, Zeke, so stop acting like a dog in the manger.”

“You’re divorced?” Barclay sounded as if he was about to faint.

“That’s the problem,” Zeke murmured. “She isn’t, actually. There was a little hangup with the paperwork, and so our divorce never quite went through. Sorry to break the news this way, darling—but you’re still married. To me.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE room seemed to whirl around Dana.

It wasn’t possible, she thought. It was six years since they’d called it quits, and the proof was buried at the back of the fire-safe box in her closet where she kept her most important papers.

Or…was it?

Suddenly—illogically—doubt swept over her. She had certainly received documents. But when that long brown envelope had finally arrived, months after they’d actually split, she’d simply glanced at the papers inside before she’d put the package away. Half of her had been relieved that the whole mess was over, but the other half was still stinging with misery and injured pride. The last thing she’d wanted to do was read every last detail, set down in harsh black and white in a chilly legal document, concerning the most painful mistake of her life.

But she’d looked at it closely enough to know what it was—a final dissolution of her brief marriage. Zeke was wrong, that was all there was to it. Where he’d gotten the idea that the divorce hadn’t gone through was beyond her, but he had to be wrong.

Or else he was flat-out lying.

She found herself looking uncertainly at him. The one thing he had never done, in their months together, was to lie to her.

People change, she thought. But did they change in such essential ways as that?

Of course, the fact that he’d never lied to her wasn’t exactly an accolade, Dana told herself. There had been times during their brief marriage when Zeke’s bluntness had not helped the situation at all. For instance, during that last argument when he’d made it clear that he was anxious not only to get away from the campus but from her…

This is no time to be reliving the past, she reminded herself. You’ve got enough to deal with right now. Like the fact that Barclay’s face had turned purple and he looked as if he couldn’t breathe.

She hit him a sharp blow between the shoulder blades, just in case he’d inhaled an olive, and he gasped, choked, and started to laugh. “For a minute there, I thought you were serious,” he said. “What a joker—I’d heard you have quite a sense of humor, Zeke, but I had no idea it was quite so…unusual.”

Zeke looked down at him, eyes half-hooded. Though he was only a couple of inches taller than Barclay, somehow he managed to make it look like much more, as though he towered over the other man.

It was a good trick, Dana thought. Under other circumstances, she might have been amused at his lord-of-the-manor pose.

“Oh, it’s a side-splitter of a story, all right,” Zeke said agreeably. “I’m glad you enjoyed my efforts to entertain you, Bark.”

If he hadn’t already had a shock, Dana suspected Barclay wouldn’t even have winced at the mangling of his name. But obviously he wasn’t fully recovered yet, for distaste flickered across his face. “Uh…yeah,” he said. “Let me get you that drink Dana promised you.”

He strode off toward the bar. The buzz of conversation picked up again, and for a moment Zeke and Dana were almost alone in the center of the room.

“I don’t know what game you’re playing,” Dana said, “but I don’t appreciate it.”

“Sorry to interrupt your life, honey, but it isn’t a game.” Zeke’s gaze shifted to a point over her shoulder.

Dana was furious. “You can’t just come in here and make an announcement like that and then ignore me when I ask for an explanation!”

“Oh, you want an explanation,” he said with a bright-eyed air of discovery. “And here I thought you’d already decided I’d made it up just to interfere in your new romance.”

“As if you’d want to,” Dana snapped.

He looked appraisingly at her. “Don’t you mean, ‘As if you could’? Come between you and the new boyfriend, I mean.”

“That, too.” It came out sounding a little lame, Dana thought, but her feelings—or lack of them—for Barclay were certainly none of Zeke’s business.

“Though I’d be doing you a favor if I did break it up. Honestly, Dana, can’t you do any better than Barclay Howell?”

“Coming from you, Zeke, that’s the funniest joke of the year.”

“Everybody thinks I’m so humorous, maybe I should take up comedy.”

“You’d fit right into the profession,” Dana said coolly.

Zeke reached past her to take the glass Barclay was holding. “Thanks, Bark.”

Dana bit her tongue. The night was young, and sooner or later she’d have a chance to get Zeke off in a corner and shake an explanation out of him. Whether he could adequately justify what he’d done was probably another question altogether, but at least she could find out what he’d been thinking when he made that bizarre announcement.

In the meantime, she decided, the best way to head off more questions was to pretend nothing important had happened. She smiled at Barclay. “You must ask Zeke to tell you about his first couple of years here. The university had quite a reputation as a party school back then, and he helped add a chapter to the story. If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I see that Professor Wells has just arrived. I’m helping her to organize an event that’s coming up later this week, and I must ask her about a few details.” She tried not to give a sigh of relief as she made her escape.

Professor Wells was at the bar, taking a tentative sip of her Scotch and water. “I hate these parties,” she grumbled to Dana. “But at least I’ll say for Barclay Howell that he insists on good Scotch. I think the stuff the last president served was really antifreeze. How are the arrangements for the trivia tournament shaping up?”

Dana bit back a smile. “I’m sure the sponsors of the Academic Honors Bowl wouldn’t like hearing you call it a trivia tournament.”

“Then they should make it a real contest. Put in some questions that require intellect and reasoning instead of a command of random information.”

“Finding enough dormitory space to house a couple of hundred high school students overnight wasn’t easy,” Dana admitted. “And I’m having a little trouble with the awards ceremony at the end of the day. The lecture hall in the conference center isn’t large enough to hold all the students who are taking part, but I can’t put chairs in the aisles or the fire inspector will have a fit.”

Professor Wells grunted. “If enough of them get bored and leave early, there’ll be no shortage of seats.”

“That’s true, but it’s hardly the solution we want.”

“I know, Dana. We really need that new building. Of course, don’t hold your breath. If the trustees have their way, there’ll be a new stadium first, and then a basketball arena, and then—”

Dana was having trouble concentrating. She realized suddenly that even with her back turned she knew exactly where in the room Zeke was at any given moment. The hairs at the nape of Dana’s neck seemed to be acting as a sort of compass, with Zeke being true north. It didn’t help that Barclay seemed to be showing him off, making the rounds of the room in order to introduce him to everyone.

She finally gave up on making sense of the conversation and told Professor Wells she’d phone her the next day to get the list of people who had volunteered to serve as question-readers and judges for the academic bowl. Instantly her internal radar seemed to relax a bit, but as soon as she turned her attention back to the room, she saw why.

Zeke was leaving. He was already in the entrance hall, with Barclay beside him, obviously almost pleading with him to stay a little longer. She watched as Zeke shook his head and went out.

He had been there less than half an hour, but that short space of time had thrown Dana into the worst emotional turmoil she’d felt since their divorce. And now he was escaping without giving her any justification at all for his behavior.

Which was pretty much par for the course where Zeke was concerned.

Barclay closed the door behind him and came straight across the drawing room to Dana. He looked, she thought warily, as if he’d like to kick the nearest alumnus. She braced herself. How was she going to explain that incredible announcement of Zeke’s when she had no idea herself what he’d been talking about?

“You could have told me you knew him.” It sounded like an accusation.

“There was no reason to. It was back in the dark ages.”

“The timing doesn’t matter.”

“Look,” she said, keeping her voice low. “You must realize you took me by surprise earlier this evening. If we’d been dating, of course I would have told you I’d been married before. But it’s not something I announce when I’m first introduced to someone, so—”

Barclay waved a hand, dismissing her concern. “I wasn’t talking about that.”

Dana almost choked. “Then what are you talking about?”

“You could at least have filled me in about his history,” he said impatiently. “Warned me about that kooky sense of humor…you mean you really were married to him?”

Dana nodded. “For about three months.”

“Oh. Well, that’s nothing.”

Nothing, Dana thought. But did he mean that her short-lived marriage was unimportant because it had no implications for her current decisions, or because finding out about it had changed his mind about the offer he’d made?

Not that it altered her feelings about Barclay in the least, but it would be convenient to know whether she was still supposed to be considering his proposal. Why waste time trying to find a way to let him down gently, if he had decided she wasn’t suitable marriage material after all?

Barclay sounded aggrieved. “You could at least have suggested the best way to approach him.”

As if he were a rattlesnake, Dana thought. “You want my advice on how to get a donation out of Zeke Ferris? Sorry, but I have no idea how to persuade the man to part with his money, because when I knew him he didn’t have any. I’m the one who paid for the divorce.”

The divorce I didn’t get after all…She told herself firmly not to leap to conclusions. Just because Zeke had said something didn’t make it true. Maybe Barclay was right, and Zeke had intended it as a sort of practical joke. Then, as soon as he’d realized that she didn’t find it amusing, he’d sloped off rather than take responsibility for a gag gone bad…

But that behavior wasn’t like the Zeke she’d known, either. Dana’s head was starting to pound.

She had never in her life been so glad to see the end of a party. She pitched in to help the caterers clean up, partly so they could all go home sooner, partly because she didn’t want to face another tête-á-tête with Barclay just now—but mostly because as long as she was surrounded by a group of outsiders, Connie couldn’t ask her any questions. And since at the moment she had absolutely no answers…

She kept on working after Connie gave up and left. Finally, when the last members of the catering crew were ready to go, Dana took her raincoat from a hook near the kitchen door and went out with them. The last truck roared away and she was alone.

The dark and gloomy afternoon had given way to a darker and gloomier evening. It wasn’t quite raining, but the air was so heavy with mist that the usual evening sounds were softened and flattened. Her footsteps on the brick driveway didn’t make the usual sharp click, and the creak of the gate as she opened and closed it was unusually muted. The sound of a car engine starting might have come from any direction at all.

She turned toward downtown, to walk the dozen blocks to her little house. Her hands were deep in the pockets of her raincoat and her head was bent against the misty air. She was vaguely aware of a car coming up behind her, but that was nothing new. It would have been more unusual for the streets to be empty at this hour in this neighborhood. Though she felt dead tired, in fact it wasn’t late.

It took her a while to realize that the car was moving too slowly. It should have passed her by now. Was it following her?

She shot a nervous glance over her shoulder and speeded her steps. A Jaguar. If a stalker was after her, she thought, at least he had good taste.

The car crept along beside her for another few yards, then pulled in toward the curb. The passenger-side window opened and a man leaned across the seat to look out at her.

“Want a lift?” Zeke asked.

“I was enjoying my solitude,” Dana pointed out. She kept walking.

The car crept along beside her. “I thought you wanted an explanation.”

She stopped. “Does that mean you’re actually planning to give me one?”

“Get in.” He pushed the door open.

She perched sideways on the seat with the door open and one foot still planted on the street.

“You never used to be the nervous sort,” Zeke said, “but at the moment you look like you’re ready to run. And yet you’re walking home at this hour. The two things don’t fit together somehow.”

“Give it a little thought and I’m sure you can figure out why I’m a bit jittery at the idea of sitting here.” Her voice was dry. “What gives, Zeke?”

“I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable. If you don’t want to sit here, let’s go somewhere for dinner.”

“Let’s have that explanation first.”

“I’m too hungry to keep my mind on details.”

“It’s your own fault if you’re hungry. There was food at the party.”

“That’s what you call food? Those dainty little nibbles didn’t even take the edge off. I’ve been sitting here fantasizing about a steak. I had just about convinced myself I was wasting my time waiting for you to come out. Another five minutes and I’d have been gone.”

“My timing always was rotten,” Dana murmured. “So if you were going to wait five more minutes for me anyway, you might as well put it to good use. Give me the condensed version and then you can go eat. And by the way, if that remark about wasting your time waiting for me was a polite way of asking whether I’ve moved in with Barclay, the answer is no.”

“Oh, I’m sure you still go home every night…eventually. Barclay wouldn’t want any gossip about his future wife.”

Dana hit her temple with the heel of her hand. “What on earth is wrong with me? Did I just imply that you were trying to be polite? My mistake. I take it all back.” She slid out of the car, slammed the door, and leaned in the still-open window. “If you waited around just so you could insult me, you wasted your time, Zeke. Good night.” She took two steps.

The car crept forward. “You keep saying you want me to tell you what happened.”

“Well—yes, now that you mention it, it would be nice to know what inspired you to say such a stupid thing. No, wait—let me guess. You just had to make sure that Barclay knew I’d been married—is that it?”

Zeke’s voice was soft. “So I was right on target. You hadn’t told him.”

Dana could have kicked herself for admitting as much. “No, I hadn’t. But—” She stopped. She was not about to confide in Zeke that she hadn’t even known Barclay well enough to tell him about her past; Zeke would laugh himself into tears.

“Barclay’s first lady will have to be like Caesar’s wife, you know,” he said with a sanctimonious air that made Dana want to punch him. “He couldn’t possibly marry any woman who had a breath of suspicion hanging over her, and I…well, I just couldn’t live with myself if I hadn’t done my best to prevent a scandal.”

“You’re the one who caused the scandal,” Dana pointed out. “Besides, there’s nothing for anyone to be scandalized about. It happens all the time. We got married, we decided it didn’t work, we got divorced—”

Zeke shook his head. “Not quite.”

“Look, enough of the joke already.”

“I wish it was a joke, Dana.”

There was a deep and obviously heartfelt note in his voice that made Dana’s stomach feel like lead. She said uncertainly, “You weren’t making it up?”

Zeke shook his head. “Come on,” he said and pushed the car door open. “We’ve got some talking to do.”