Besides, Ross thought as he headed to the table, Gerald cheats at tennis.
Charity was waiting for him, a puzzled frown between her brows. "What on earth was that all about?" she asked.
He slid beside her in the booth, and taking her hand, brought it to his lips. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he murmured.
She hesitated, not sure she wanted to know. But one thing was certain, this sudden encounter with someone from Ross's life had jolted her back to reality. The look, the style, the savoir-faire-why hadn't she realized it be fore?
"We missed you at the country club," Gerald had said.
Yes, Ross was country club all right. He'd only taken this job as a favor to his sister, who ran the temporary agency. He surely belonged in corporate boardrooms and elegant drawing rooms. Her cheeks reddened as she remembered how she'd reminded him about table manners the night before! Ross was country club and prep school and Ivy League colleges, and what was she? South Sea Islands. He'd even said so himself.
A South Sea Islands girl with a fantasy of being mar ried to a country-club blue blood. She sighed and her smile was bittersweet as she met his gaze. He was still kissing her hand. She'd never dreamed she would enjoy that so much.
Finally she laughed, shaking her head. "Never mind," she said, relishing the touch of his lips against her fingers, de termined to live this lie to the hilt. "I love a man with an air of mystery about him."
His gaze met hers, and the word she'd used-love- seemed to echo between them.
"That's me," he said ca sually, but under his light sport shirt, his heart was ham mering. His hand tightened on hers. "Your mystery man."
Aunt Doris came back to the table, and the food ar rived. The trout fried in a crushed macadamia-nut batter, salads made of orange sections and julienne jicama and wild rice on the side were California cuisine extraor dinaire.
"Do you like this?" Ross asked Aunt Doris as they tried their entrees.
"It's all right," she said gruffly. "I can eat just about anything. Just as long as you don't try to make me eat any of that green stuff you all eat out here."
"Green stuff?" Charity frowned, and then the light dawned. "You don't mean guacamole?"
"I do mean guacamole," Aunt Doris said placidly, peeling off macadamia nuts with her fork in order to get down to plain old trout. "And I wouldn't touch it with a ten-foot pole."
The food was actually delicious. The atmosphere was divine. As the sun sank on the horizon, a fiery apricot ball descending into a shimmering silver sea, they all three felt comfortably full together.