Maybe Married

“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.