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  Rand paused. “I’ll be coming directly from the school and will probably be at your place around seven-fifteen. The play’s at eight; that should give us plenty of time.”

  “I’ll be ready.” Karen felt like singing; she wanted to laugh and dance all at the same moment.

  When he spoke, she could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll see you then. Bye for now.”

  “Bye.” Karen replaced the receiver and glanced at her sister’s curious face. Driven by a happiness she couldn’t contain, Karen flung her arms around Judy. “How soon did you say my new dress would be ready?”

  For the second time, Karen smoothed a wrinkle from her skirt. Nervous fingers toyed with the deeply veed neckline of the bodice, examining again the velvet ribbon, lace, and pearls of the ornate trim. The skill and patience it had taken to string each pearl between the delicate lace and ribbon brought a sense of awe to Karen. The dress was far more than a simple birthday gift; it was a labor of love.

  Karen was ready early, absurdly so. Rand wasn’t due for another twenty minutes, and already she had checked her appearance ten times in the hallway mirror. Careful attention had been paid to her makeup, although she seldom wore much, preferring the natural look. Styling her hair had taken the major part of an hour. If anyone had known she was going to such trouble for someone who could never see her, they would have thought she was crazy.

  When Rand’s knock came, Karen nearly jumped from her chair. Releasing a deep sigh of tension, she paused long enough to calm herself.

  “Hello, Rand,” she greeted cheerfully.

  He moved into her apartment, and again Karen was struck by his basic masculine appeal. His face possessed character and strength.

  “Karen,” he said, his voice formal, “are you ready, or do you need a few extra minutes?”

  “I’m ready.” They were acting like awkward strangers meeting for the first time on a blind date. The analogy nearly sent her into nervous giggles. “Would … would you like something to drink before we go?”

  Rand shifted; everything about him seemed controlled. “Thank you, no. The taxi’s waiting.”

  Their conversation in the cab was so polite and stilted that Karen wanted to scream in frustration. This evening would never work with Rand’s attitude. His formal greeting, the stiff conversation, indicated that although he was complying with his part of the agreement, he regretted it.

  The seats for the play were among the best. The oppressive silence stretched between them while the theater began filling. Suddenly, Karen turned toward Rand and said the most ridiculous thing that came to mind.

  “The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.”

  He relaxed. “The rain?” He arched a curious brow.

  “That’s right,” she assured him coolly. “It stays mainly in the plain.”

  Against his will, Karen noted his eyes deepened into smiling grooves. “What makes you say that?” He was completely earnest.

  “I could see what was coming. First you’d ask me if I was comfortable, and then we’d discuss the weather. It was either say something totally ridiculous or scream.”

  Amusement softened his expression. “I’m eternally grateful you didn’t scream.”

  “You’re most welcome. Now, are you going to enjoy the evening, or do I have to create a scene?”

  For a moment, Karen thought Rand was going to laugh. “My mother warned me about women like you.”

  “I’m sure she did,” she said resolutely after a pause. She shifted forward slightly. “Would you mind helping me with my coat? If I don’t take it off now, I’ll roast later.”

  His hand lingered as it cupped her shoulder in the briefest of contacts before following the sleeve and holding it stationary while she withdrew her arm.

  “Thank you,” she said softly.

  His mouth moved into a lazy smile as he relaxed against the plush seat. “You’re welcome.” Tentatively, his hand sought hers, gently folding her slim one in his.

  Karen settled into her seat, too. It was almost impossible to describe what a simple thing like holding hands with Rand did to her. Even a dictionary, Karen decided, couldn’t define the pleasure she found in his company.

  “Tell me about the play. It has the most curious title—Deadly Vintage.” An aura of anticipation and excitement touched Karen, who enjoyed live performances above all else.

  “A friend of mine wrote it,” Rand began. “I think you’ll find the plot intriguing. I won’t spoil it for you by discussing details.” He finished just as the curtain rose.

  Rand was right; the plot was excellent, and the cast held the audience’s full attention. The story revolved around a young man facing financial ruin, struggling against all odds to keep his business and family together. Karen felt herself tense as one complication after another fell upon the young man’s shoulders. Right before the intermission, a second, older man was introduced, who promised to help the young man.

  Karen sighed gratefully. “Things were beginning to look a little bleak there for a minute,” she said to Rand.

  He squeezed her hand and murmured cryptically, “Things aren’t always what they appear.”

  “Oh, no?” She slouched against the back of her seat. “I thought you said you wouldn’t ruin the story for me.”

  Amusement glittered from his dark eyes. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

  A sick feeling knotted Karen’s stomach as the second part of the play unfolded. The older man agreed to pay all the younger man’s debts on one condition. The young man must agree to have dinner with the older man. Sometime during the course of the meal, the young man would be offered wine. But the wine contained a deadly poison. No physical pressure would be applied to the man to drink the wine. If he chose to drink, it would be of his own free will. The man hesitantly agreed, but told the rich man he had much to live for and had no intention of drinking the wine. The older man amicably agreed that that was exactly as he wished it. Later, the young man learned this same agreement had been made many times over with others in the same financial difficulties. They, too, had agreed to the dinner with no intention of drinking the deadly vintage. In every instance, the men drank the wine and died.

  The characterization of the rich man was portrayed superbly. The overwhelming force of his personality, his power of persuasion, had Karen sitting on the edge of her seat, wishing there was some way she could intervene and help the younger man. The play ended just as the wine was offered.

  “That’s it?” Karen gasped as the final curtain closed. “It can’t possibly end there. What happened?” She turned anxiously to Rand. “What happened?” she demanded again.

  “My dear Karen, I have no more idea than you.”

  The cast was called for three curtain calls, after which the theater began emptying. “Are you ready?” Rand questioned.

  “No … not yet,” Karen said stubbornly. Again and again, certain phrases and scenes played in her mind.

  Rand shifted impatiently. “Karen,” he said finally, “no one’s coming to add a postscript. This is it.”

  “He didn’t accept the wine,” she said more forcefully than she meant. She stood and reached for her coat.

  “Is that so?” He was mocking her.

  “Yes. If you examined the evidence, you’d realize it, too,” she defended herself.

  “It seems to me you’re searching for a satisfactory conclusion. That sensitive female nature of yours insists upon a happy ending.”

  “Honestly, Rand, my sensitive female nature, as you call it, has nothing to do with this. What do you think he did?”

  Karen had the curious sensation Rand was watching her, not with his eyes, of course, but with his other senses.

  “I’m not sure,” he said thoughtfully. “Why don’t we go somewhere and discuss it? Have you had dinner?”

  Karen hadn’t; her nerves had been a jumbled mess most of the day, and although she hadn’t eaten since lunch, she wasn’t the least bit hungry.

  “No, as
a matter of fact, I haven’t.” Karen smiled to herself. She may not have much of an appetite, but she wasn’t about to refuse an invitation from Rand.

  Karen ordered a shrimp salad and coffee, while Rand had apple pie. “Are you sure you wouldn’t care for a glass of wine?” he teased after the waiter had taken the menu.

  “Hardly!” She didn’t bother to disguise her amusement. This was how she’d prayed their evening would be—a teasing banter between them without the steel-wall façade Rand had erected earlier. They discussed the play in detail; Karen argued her view, while Rand, with clear-headed logic, proved exactly the opposite, that the younger man had drunk the wine.

  “Now I don’t know what to believe.” Irrationally, she was almost angry with him. The matter had been settled in her own mind, and he had completely shattered her confidence. “I was perfectly content before.”

  Rand grinned that crooked little smile she’d seen only at rare times when he was especially pleased about something. Using some of the same rationale she’d used, Rand proceeded to prove that indeed the man had not drunk the wine.

  Karen was astonished as she listened to him. Everything he said seemed perfectly sensible, sound, and reasonable, yet only a few minutes before he’d taken the opposing viewpoint.

  “Remind me never to argue with you,” she muttered.

  “I’ve had more time to think about it is all. And if past evidence is anything to go by, you hold your own in any argument. I certainly never intended to see you again, and look at us now.”

  Karen’s eyes widened in hurt astonishment.

  “I’d better phone Carl,” Rand added after checking his watch. It was one made specially for the blind, and Karen was curious as to how it worked. “It’s nearly midnight, and you’re a working girl.”

  “Not tomorrow I’m not,” she answered absently, trying to catch a glimpse of his wrist again.

  “Is there some holiday I don’t know about?” he asked, a teasing glint in his eye.

  “Not a holiday, exactly.” She placed her coffee cup on the china saucer. “It’s my birthday, and the cable company gives their employees the day off with pay. Rather a nice gesture, I think.”

  “Your birthday?” His expression turned serious, as if he’d made a social blunder. “You should have said something.”

  Karen gave a tiny laugh. “I just did.”

  “You’re twenty-four?” It wasn’t really a question, and Karen didn’t bother to answer. “There are twelve years between us. I’m far too old for you, Karen.”

  “My goodness, at thirty-six you must be sitting around just waiting to collect Social Security,” she said with a mocking laugh.

  She watched as he rubbed a weary hand across his forehead. “See what I mean? You effectively smash any argument I have against the two of us. Rather well, I might add.”

  While he phoned Carl, Karen excused herself to go to the ladies’ room. She took longer than necessary, checking her appearance and applying fresh lip gloss and combing her hair. She felt so different with Rand and wondered if that tingling awareness between them affected her looks. Although she studied her reflection for several moments, she decided she looked exactly the same. Repressing a sigh of disappointment, she joined him.

  “Carl is meeting me at your place in about twenty minutes,” he told her in the foyer of the restaurant. “I have a cab waiting.”

  “That’s fine,” she agreed. “We’ll have time for coffee.”

  Karen rested her head against his shoulder as they rode to her apartment. She could feel the roughness of his breath against her hair.

  Once inside her apartment, Karen had no more desire for coffee than she had had for dinner. She hung up both their coats, suddenly feeling uneasy. “Make yourself at home. I’ll get the coffee going.”

  As she turned toward the kitchen, Rand’s arm caught hers, drawing her back. “I don’t want coffee,” he murmured, pulling her close to him.

  Without hesitation, Karen accepted his embrace, lifting her face to meet his kiss. It began sweet and gentle but deepened as he parted her mouth. The surge of passion that sprang between them was like a wind-driven wildfire. Her arms slid around his neck, her fingers wending through his hair.

  His own hands were molding her hips and back against the contours of his body. It was a devastating kiss that left Karen as powerless as a newborn baby. It was very much like coming home after a long absence. They hadn’t kissed since the night of the Christmas party, and Karen discovered that the magnetic attraction between them had only been enhanced by lapsed time.

  Ripples of desire continued as Rand nibbled the sensitive cord of her neck. “Happy birthday, my lovely Andromeda,” he whispered huskily.

  “When I was a little girl,” she began, her voice soft and trembling, “my mother insisted upon giving me kisses to count my birthday instead of spankings.”

  Karen could feel Rand’s smile against her temple. “I’m afraid I haven’t the restraint to kiss you twenty-four times without falling prey to other temptations.”

  Their lips met again in a fiery kiss that fused them together. Karen clung to him as the only solid form in a reeling world. When the kiss ended, she buried her face against his chest while he continued to rain soft kisses on her hair.

  “Are you busy tomorrow?” he questioned, his voice no more even than her breathing.

  “No,” she lied skillfully. Evan Forsyth had invited her and her sister to lunch. Judy and the boys were preparing a birthday dinner for her that evening with Matthew. But nothing mattered, not friends, not family. Nothing save Rand.

  “Can I see you, then?”

  “Yes.” She gloried in the eagerness of his request.

  “Could you come to the campus—say, around eleven? I’ve got a class at nine-thirty.”

  Karen was too full of happiness to speak. He wanted to see her again soon. They wouldn’t be separated for weeks, as had been the past pattern. “Yes, fine,” she murmured, seeking the intimate taste of his mouth upon hers again.

  A light tap, then the doorbell, interrupted them. “That’ll be Carl,” Rand murmured thickly, continuing to hold her shoulders.

  Involuntarily, Karen swayed toward him, not wishing to break the contact. Gently, he kissed her lightly one last time. “Until tomorrow,” he said, and paused. “My coat?”

  “Oh, sorry.” She fumbled awkwardly and withdrew it from the closet. Before she could add another word, he was gone.

  The doorbell chimed impatiently several times the next morning at about nine-thirty. Karen rushed to answer it, her bathrobe knotted tightly about her waist.

  “Dad,” she exclaimed, letting him in. “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be working.”

  “ ’Tis a fine greeting for the man responsible for ye being here,” he scolded her lovingly. “I’ve come to wish ye a happy birthday.” He sauntered through the apartment to the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee.

  “Did ye notice I rang the bell?” he said as he pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat.

  “I’m real proud of you, Dad, real proud.” Her voice hinted sarcasm, but her smile negated any scorn by curving upward in a gentle smile. “Why aren’t you at work?” she quizzed again.

  Matthew deposited a second spoonful of sugar into his mug before answering. “I didn’t feel like working,” he told her indifferently. “A man needs an excuse to take a day off every now and then. And what better excuse than my lass’s birthday?”

  Karen poured herself a cup and sat opposite him at the tiny round table. She would have argued, but Matthew looked pale and drawn; perhaps a day’s vacation was a good idea.

  “Twenty-four years,” he said with the glazed look that crossed his face when he was thinking of her mother. “Ye realize, when your mother was twenty-four, she was married, had Judy, and was pregnant with you.”

  Karen sighed heavily. She’d hoped to avoid another one of her father’s tirades about her single status. “I know that, Dad.”
/>   “You’re far behind her, lass. Even Judy had James and Carter before she was twenty-four.”

  Karen stood abruptly and emptied her coffee in the kitchen sink. “I know that, too,” she said with a tight rein on her temper.

  “There’s not much time remaining before people will begin thinking of you as unmarriageable. I’d hate to see ye an old maid.”

  Karen’s eyes ballooned angrily. “That’s ridiculous,” she spat impatiently. With storm clouds gathering, hands on her hips, Karen squarely faced her father. “Why is it you and I can’t have a decent conversation anymore? You’re constantly bugging me about getting married, and I’m not about to jump into a relationship to satisfy your whims. It’s getting to the point I don’t even like being around you anymore. Would you kindly lay off?” she said forcefully.

  Her father’s sad eyes met Karen’s fiery gaze, and once again she noted that her father looked like a man well past his prime, a man without purpose. Taking deep breaths to control her temper, she offered him a weak smile. “I love you, Dad. Let’s not argue, especially today. Okay?”

  “Okay, lass.” He responded to her smile with one of his own. “How was the date with Rand last night?”

  Telltale emotions flickered across her face. “Wonderful. In fact, I’m meeting him this morning.” Pointedly, she checked her wristwatch.

  “I thought you were having lunch with Evan. He seems to have invited the whole family except me.” If Matthew was hinting for an invitation, Karen wasn’t going to issue one. Both girls were aware that although the lunch had been planned to correspond with Karen’s birthday, the purpose was to discuss Matthew. The change in his personality over the past months had not gone unnoticed by his friends, and Evan was as worried as Karen and Judy.

  “I am having lunch with Evan, but I’m meeting Rand first. That’s why I’ve got to get moving.”

  “All right, lass, I’ll see you tonight.”

  After surveying her wardrobe carefully, Karen chose designer jeans and a forest-green velour top. Since it was raining, she chose fashionable knee-high leather boots.