He thought of her as “the golden girl.” Her almost shoulder-length, layered chestnut hair was shot through with artfully applied golden highlights. Her flawless skin was deepened either by tanning booths or bronzers. Even her eyes were a pure amber—and those he suspected were her natural color.
She had a smooth forehead, a perfect nose, high cheekbones and a rounded chin dotted with a shallow dimple just below the right corner of her mouth. Of medium height, she had legs that went on forever, nicely proportioned breasts, a slim waist and gently curving hips—adding up to a package that would make any red-blooded man stop in his tracks and think, Whoa, buddy!
If he were a man who was interested in fleeting affairs, he would have taken her up on the invitation her habitual flirting seemed to imply long ago. But he was the full-time single father of two little girls. He didn’t have the time nor the luxury to indulge in affairs.
As for anything else—well, he’d been married to a woman who had valued entertainment above the daily responsibilities of family life. Even if he were in the market for a long-term relationship, it wouldn’t be with a party girl like Miranda Martin.
Besides, he had seen the way she’d looked at his kids on the rare occasion when she’d seen them. As if strange and somewhat intimidating aliens had wandered into her field of vision. Even if he tried to delude himself into thinking he and Miranda could form a personal bond, he had a feeling that she considered there to be two very prominent obstacles in their path.
“Who was that lady in your office today, Daddy?” Payton asked over dinner that evening.
“You mean the one you so rudely interrupted when you burst in without knocking?”
She sighed—something she did with innately expressive skill. “I already said I’m sorry,” she reminded him. “Who was she?”
“A client. Her name is Miranda Martin.”
“She was pretty.”
Mark glanced across the table. “Madison, don’t give your peas to Poochie. Eat them yourself.”
Three-year-old Madison, a smaller, blonder duplicate of her sister, obligingly stuffed a spoonful of peas into her food-smeared mouth, leaving Poochie, a rather ragged stray mutt Mark had rescued six months earlier, to wait beneath the table in hopes of dropped scraps.
Payton, who liked to tell everyone she was four-going-on-five (in just four months), and whom Mark thought of as four-going-on-thirty, wasn’t finished asking questions. “Don’t you think she’s pretty, Daddy?”
Mark was still keeping a watchful eye on his youngest child. “Mmm? You mean Madison? I think she’s very pretty.”
Payton groaned. “Not Madison, Daddy. That lady. Miranda Martin.”
That reclaimed his attention. “Yeah, sure. She’s very pretty.”
“Can I get my ears pierced? I want some of those big gold circles like she had.”
Picturing his four-year-old in gypsy hoops, Mark stifled a smile. “Not until you’re older.”
“Nicola Cooper got pierced ears. She gets to wear little silver circles.”
“When you’re older, Payton.”
Another sigh, and then, “Are you going to take her on a date?”
“No.”
“Nicola Cooper’s mother goes on dates. She gets all dressed up in pretty clothes and takes Nicola to her grandma’s house. Sometimes Nicola gets to stay all night at her grandma’s house.”
“Yes, well…eat your chicken, babe. It’s getting cold.”
Two hastily swallowed bites later, Payton was at it again. “Why aren’t you going to take her on a date if you think she’s pretty?”
“Just because.” As an answer, it was pretty lame, but the best he could come up with at the moment. “Tell me more about your field trip,” he said, making an attempt to change the subject. “When did you say you’re going? Next Monday?”
He remembered perfectly well that it was Tuesday, but at least the question distracted Payton from his social life—or lack thereof. She started chattering about the planned outing, seeming to forget all about Miranda Martin.
Mark wished he could forget her as quickly. Payton’s innocent questions had made him think of things that would be much better left alone.
Though Little Rock was the capitol and the largest city in Arkansas, it was still small enough that Miranda could hardly go anywhere without running into someone she knew. Especially at the local music clubs where she liked to hang out in the evenings; she only had to walk in for someone to call out to her to join them at their table.
Tonight that table included three other women and two men, all of whom Miranda knew at least in passing. She considered them friends, though she doubted that any one of them would be of much use if she found herself in trouble. Not that it mattered to her, since she considered herself a fiercely independent woman who took care of her own problems and expected others to do the same.
“Miranda, you look amazing,” Oliver Cartwright pronounced, studying her outfit with a critical eye. “Not many people can get away with that color, but it looks fabulous on you.”
“Coming from you, that’s a high compliment,” she assured him.
She had paid a little extra attention to her appearance tonight, pairing a flirty gold top with a pair of low-slung dark jeans and strappy heels. The top was cut just low enough at the neckline to give a glimpse of cleavage and just high enough at the hem to reveal an inch of spray-tanned abdomen. Modest compared to what many of the young women in the club were wearing, but still eye-catching, which had been her intention.
If Oliver, the local fashion cop, approved, she must have done something right, she thought with satisfaction.
“Lucky you,” a busty bottle-blonde in a clingy red dress said with a pout. “Oliver said I look like an over-ripe tomato.”
“You insist on wearing clothes that are too tight for you,” he pointed out to her. “I keep telling you that subtlety is sexier than a desperate play for attention.”
“Miranda’s wearing a shiny gold top. Isn’t that a play for attention?”
“Note that Miranda’s boobs aren’t trying their best to escape the fabric that covers them. You’ll certainly get attention with your dress tonight, Brandi, but don’t come crying to us again when the Mr. Right Now you take home disappears with the sunrise.”
Brandi, who made no secret of her desire to get married—preferably to someone with money—flounced discontentedly in her seat. “You’re so mean, Oliver.”
“Yes, darling, but I’m always right.”
The rest of the party laughed at his droll retort, though no one dared dispute it.
A cocktail waitress appeared at the table and Miranda ordered a Manhattan while several of the others requested seconds of their own drinks. She would allow herself only a single drink tonight, but she would thoroughly savor that one indulgence.
Having grown up in a home where alcohol was synonymous with sin—as were dancing, cursing, television, movies, fiction, vanity, frivolity and any sexual activity, including handholding and kissing, outside of marriage—she had vowed to be answerable to no one but herself when she escaped, which she had done after graduating from high school at seventeen. That was ten years ago, and she hadn’t looked back since.
Oliver turned back to his friend Randall, and Brandi strutted off to the ladies’ room, making sure she caught plenty of male attention on the way. An attractive woman Miranda had met a couple of times before leaned over to ask quietly, “Do you think he hurt her feelings?”
“Brandi? Hardly. She’ll sulk awhile, then