“What?” At the unexpected sound of Ana’s voice, he roused himself. Had his sulkiness been rewarded? Finally she had deigned to look directly at him and speak, something she had avoided doing all evening.

“Do you think Ruby’s all right?” she repeated, indicating the older woman with a nod of her head.

Trent looked at his aunt. How long had her head been bent over her chest like that? And why hadn’t he noticed her loud snoring before now? Because his mind had been too preoccupied with Ana, that’s why.

He smiled. “I think she had one too many cups of tea.” Rana smiled back. It was a pretty smile, despite her overlapping front teeth. He barely even noticed that flaw now.

“Should we waken her?” she asked him.

“That might embarrass her.”

“You’re right.” She stood up and switched off the television. The absence of the blue-white light made the room much darker. Through the heavy shadows, Rana moved toward the sofa where Ruby sat sleeping. Trent got to his feet.

“Do you think you could carry her to her room?” She tilted her head back to look up at him.

“I think I can manage that.”

For a moment neither moved. They just stood there, staring at each other through the darkness. Ruby’s soft snores kept time with the clacking pendulum of the clock. The room closed in around them. It was difficult to breathe.

They were hot all over.

Rana was the first to move and break the spell. “Can you lift her up?”

“Sure.”

Trent was glad for a chance to expend energy. If he didn’t find an outlet for it soon, he’d explode. He bent down and slid one arm beneath his aunt’s knees, the other behind her back. Seemingly without any effort, he lifted her up. He grimaced.

Rana laid her hand on his upper arm. “Does that hurt your shoulder?”

“It’s all right.” He glanced down at her hand.

She removed it. “I didn’t think about your shoulder, or I never would have suggested that you carry her.”

“Why don’t you go ahead and turn down her bed?”

Hurriedly Rana did as he asked. Ruby’s apartment was located down the central hail, past the staircase, at the back of the house. It was cluttered with a lifetime of memorabilia. The bedroom had a small bath adjoining it. Her living quarters were actually smaller than those of her tenants. Rana peeled back the crocheted bedspread and the sheets. Trent laid his aunt gently on her bed. She hadn’t awakened.

“Thank you. I’ll undress her,” Rana offered.

He was surprised. He couldn’t imagine any of the women he knew doing such a thankless task. He felt immediately ashamed of himself. All afternoon and evening he’d been harboring a grudge against this woman, mentally accusing her of being everything from a dried-up old prude to a heartlessly fickle tease.

If he had reacted so violently to her accidental touch this afternoon, what must she have felt? Mortification, to say the least. Now, here she was, offering to undress a tipsy old lady out of sheer kindness.

A strong new emotion welled inside him. It was so powerful he couldn’t allow himself to speak. He merely nodded and left the room.

When Rana followed him several minutes later, she was surprised to find him waiting in the hall. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. She didn’t miss a snore.”

They walked through the house. He switched off lights as they went. His footsteps fell close behind hers on the stairs. When they reached the doors of their respective rooms, they faced each other awkwardly. A faint light was cast by one small bulb at the end of the hall.

He wanted to touch her. God, he wanted to. He wanted to lay his palm against her cheek just to see if it was as soft as it looked. He wanted to thread his fingers through the thick mane of hair hanging down her back, to sweep it away from her face so he wouldn’t feel as though he was looking at her through a screen. He wanted to take off her eyeglasses and look into her eyes, to see their color, to solve the mystery of them. He wanted to explore beneath her bulky clothing with his hands, to find the breasts that haunted his imagination. He wanted to run his tongue along those beguiling front teeth.

And his body was informing him that he wanted to be much more intimate with her than he was allowing himself to contemplate.

“Good night, Ana,” he said thickly.

“Good night, Trent.”

In her room, Rana walked immediately to her bed and lay down. Her whole body was trembling. She had wanted so badly for him to touch her. Touch me, she had all but cried out.

But Ana Ramsey wasn’t beautiful, and Trent Gamblin was accustomed to making love to beautiful women.

Making love? She scolded herself. She was the one who had wanted friendship. Now that she had that, did she want something more?

Honestly she had to admit that she didn’t know. When he was around Trent she felt either miserable or wonderful. Why? Her knees went weak at the sight of him. The sound of his voice elicited almost uncontainable excitement within her.

The worst of it was, she spent far too many hours each day thinking about him. That was dangerous and just plain stupid. One day soon he’d be leaving for his summer training camp. Then what? Then he’d get caught up again in his celebrity lifestyle. He would forget about her.

And it wasn’t as if she didn’t have enough problems of her own to occupy her. Tomorrow Morey would call, expecting her response to the contract they had been offered. Did she want to return to her life in New York? Did she want to become the Rana again? Wouldn’t that be safer than falling in love with Trent? Was it wise to trade one set of problems for another? How many ways could a heart be broken?

No matter what her final decision, one thing remained certain: She must stay away from Trent. Starting tomorrow.

Five

When Trent came by the following morning for their run, she pretended not to hear his knock. Eventually he went out alone, and Rana breathed a sigh of relief. And disappointment. She had come to look forward to their morning jogging.

Carefully she pressed the wrap skirt she’d been working on, arranged it on a hanger, and covered it with a plastic bag. In all modesty she thought it was her best work, and hoped that it would meet with Mrs. Rutherford’s approval.

Getting dressed didn’t require near the time it once had. She washed her hair, but left it to dry on its own. She smoothed some moisturizing lotion on her tanned face- her mother had never let her swim or play on the beach when she was a child, because she didn’t want Rana’s skin to suffer the damaging effects of the sun-but left it free of makeup. She put on the blue-tinted eyeglasses and dressed in a shapeless, mud-colored sack dress, which she didn’t even belt. Barry would be horrified. She went downstairs to eat a quick breakfast before leaving.

“Have you seen Trent this morning?” Ruby asked as she poured Rana a cup of coffee. Rana noticed that Ruby was moving carefully and wincing at any loud sound. Rana hid a secret smile behind her china coffee cup.

“No. Why?”

“He’s in an awful mood. I thought maybe he clued you in while you were jogging.”

“I didn’t run this morning, because I was getting ready to go to Houston. I haven’t seen him.”

“Well, he’s swelled up like a bullfrog. He came stamping in a few minutes ago from his run and wearing a face like a thundercloud. He went straight up to his room without even stopping to drink his fruit juice.”

“Hm,” Rana said noncommittally as she buttered a piece of toast. “Got up on the wrong side of the bed, I guess.”

Was he pouting because she hadn’t jogged with him? In some ways he was such a child. His childish streak aroused her maternal instincts, and she found herself smiling at this latest tantrum. But she immediately squashed that emotion, as she had all the others. She couldn’t allow herself to feel anything for Trent. Where he was concerned, she had to be in an emotional vacuum.