“Guess he thought the evening was going to end a little differently.”
“Perry’s okay. He just got a little pushy tonight, that’s all.”
“Pushy, huh? Is that what you call it?” Rafe gave an easy shrug. “Well, it looked like you pushed back pretty good. For a minute there, I thought you might need a little help, but then I realized that you were handling him just fine on your own.”
“Perry is hardly the violent type.” Outrage flared. “He’s a grad student, for crying out loud. He plans to teach political science.”
“Is that right? Since when is politics a science?”
She was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question. “He expects to be offered a position on the faculty at Chamberlain as soon as he gets his Ph.D.”
“Well, shoot. If I’d known that, I wouldn’t have worried about you even half a minute while the two of you were staging that arm-wrestling contest. I mean, a guy who’s going for his Ph.D. and plans to become a hotshot professor at Chamberlain wouldn’t try to force himself on a woman. Don’t know what I was thinking.”
She was profoundly grateful for the simple fact that it was midnight. At least Rafe could not see the hot color she was almost sure was staining her face a vivid shade of pink. “There’s no call to be sarcastic. Perry and I had a disagreement, that’s all.”
“So, do you date a lot of jerks?”
“Stop calling Perry a jerk.”
“I was just curious. Can’t blame me under the circumstances, can you?”
“Yes, I can and I do.” She glared. “You’re being deliberately obnoxious.”
“But not quite as obnoxious as the jerk, huh? I haven’t even touched you.”
“Oh, shut up. I’m going home.”
“I hate to mention it, but you are standing alone here on an isolated stretch of road in the middle of the night. Like I said, it’s going to be a long walk back to your folks’ place.”
She seized the only weak point she could find in his logic. “I’m not alone.”
In the pale moonlight, his smile gleamed dangerously. “We both know that as far as your family is concerned, the fact that I’m here with you makes your situation worse than being alone. I’m a Madison, remember?”
She raised her chin. “I don’t give a darn about that stupid feud. Ancient history, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Right. Ancient history. But you know what they say about history. Those who don’t learn from it are condemned to relive it.”
Startled, she stared at him. “You sound just like Aunt Isabel. She’s always saying things like that.”
“I know.”
Hannah was floored. “You’ve talked to my aunt?”
“She talks to me.” He raised one shoulder in another dismissive gesture. “I do some work around that big house of hers sometimes. She’s a nice old lady. A little strange, but then, she is a Harte.”
She wondered what her parents would say if they discovered that Aunt Isabel hired Rafe to do odd jobs around Dreamscape. “I guess that explains where you picked up the quote.”
“You didn’t think I’d actually read it in a book, did you?”
“Everyone knows you do most of your reading at Virgil Nash’s p**n shop.” Lord, she sounded prissy. “I doubt that you’d find a quote like that in any of the books or magazines he stocks.”
Rafe was silent for a beat, as if her comment had surprised him. But he recovered immediately. “Right. Mostly I just look at the pictures, anyhow.”
“I believe it.”
“I’ll bet the jerk reads a lot.”
Quite suddenly she’d had enough. It was time to level this playing field. Rafe Madison had four years and a lifetime of experience on her, but she was a Harte. She could hold her own against a Madison.
“If you didn’t come here to play some voyeuristic games,” she said coldly, “what are you doing at Eclipse Arch at this time of night?”
“Same thing you are,” he said very smoothly. “My date and I had a little disagreement, and she kicked me out of her car.”
Hannah was astonished. “Kaitlin Sadler threw you out of her car because you wouldn’t have sex with her?”
“We didn’t argue about having sex,” he said with devastating honesty. “We argued about the fact that she’s dating other guys.”
“I see.” It was no secret that Kaitlin had been seeing other men. “I hear she wants to marry someone who can take her away from Eclipse Bay.”
“You heard right. Obviously I’m not in a position to do that, what with my failure to achieve my full potential and all.”
“Obviously.”
“Hell, I don’t even have a steady job.”
“I don’t suppose Kaitlin would consider flipping veggie burgers at Snow’s Café a position with a lot of guaranteed upward mobility,” Hannah mused.
“No, she doesn’t. She made that real clear.”
Hannah was appalled to realize that she felt an insidious little tendril of sympathy for him. “You’ve got to admit that you certainly can’t afford to keep her in the style to which she wants to become accustomed.”
“I know. But I thought we had an understanding that while we were seeing each other, neither of us would fool around with anyone else.”
“Kaitlin, I take it, didn’t share that understanding?”
“Nope. She said she didn’t want to be tied down to me. Made it clear that her first priority was finding a rich husband. Naturally, I was crushed to learn that I was nothing more than a plaything for her.”
“Yeah. Crushed.”
“Hey, Madisons have feelings too.”
“Really?” she murmured. “I’ve never heard that.”
“The family likes to keep it quiet.”
“I’m not surprised. Sort of ruins the image.”
“Yeah. You know, you’d be surprised how irritating it is to date a woman who is actively hunting elsewhere for a wealthy husband.”
“Kaitlin’s definitely active,” Hannah said neutrally. “Everyone in town knows it.”
Rafe smiled thinly. “As of tonight she can be active with someone else.”
“I suppose she was upset when you told her you didn’t want to continue in the role of, uh, plaything?”