begrudged her any effort to promote her individuality. And all too vivid still were the nights she had spent home alone because too many times she’d disappointed people for not being a real Mallory sister. By the time Moriah had entered the illustrious Prescott Academy, the other Mallorys had all graduated and become a past glory, each having left Newport to seek education and careers elsewhere. Moriah had been left alone to face the massive burden of carrying on the name and the Mallory mystique. With the name, she had little problem as it was hers by birth. The mystique, however, was something she’d never quite been able to master. Consequently it left town along with her sisters.
So Moriah tried to get by as best as she could. And academically, anyway, she did quite well; her grades were excellent. But then that was to be expected of a Mallory, so her parents had never bothered to congratulate her for her accomplishments. They did, however, continuously bemoan her lack of social achievements, her absence of chatty friends and moon-eyed suitors. They wondered avidly why she didn’t have the interest in clothes, cosmetics and the opposite sex that had kept her sisters giggling and shopping all the time. And they were constantly curious about her quiet and solitary habits. Moriah’s sisters had certainly never been that way.
Moriah gulped back the last of her second beer and quickly ordered a third. The divers beside her were staking drunken claims on a bevy of sunburned beauties that beckoned to them from the other side of the bandstand. They nudged one another clumsily in the ribs and slurred out their none too chivalrous intentions toward the women.
“Oh, for God’s sake, just go over there, toss them over your Neanderthal shoulders and carry them back to your caves,” Moriah muttered with sarcastic impatience at the largest of the men.
He turned at the sound of the deep, feminine voice beside him, his movements slow, though as a result of his drunkenness or his anger, Moriah wasn’t sure. Like his friends, he was blond and tanned from days spent under the scorching sun, and his numerous overdeveloped muscles let her know that diving wasn’t the only sport in which he excelled.
She wondered what had possessed her to speak to the giant amphibian in the first place. It was bad enough that she was sitting alone in a bar. Now she had gone and drawn unwanted attention to herself.
“Are you talkin’ to me?” the diver asked her thickly, as if his tongue was having trouble navigating.
“Uh, no. No,” Moriah said quickly, her eyes darting from one man to another as her brain scrambled for polite and credible excuses that would cover her colossal blunder. “I, uh, I was talking to myself. Yes, that’s it. I’m, uh, I’m schizophrenic, you see. And you know what they say. You’re never alone with a schizophrenic.”
The diver gazed at her with a foggy expression, trying to comprehend the information she offered him. “I’ve never heard that,” he finally told her, gazing at her with a newfound interest. A predatory light began to flicker in his eyes as another thought struck him. “So if we went to bed together, would that be like getting it on with twins?”
Moriah’s jaw dropped fast at the man’s blatant suggestion, and she tried to ignore the jeers and leers of his friends. Her slight sunburn from the afternoon spent at Magen’s Bay became a deep crimson. “Uh, no, actually,” she stammered. “I’m, uh, I’m sure you’d be very disappointed.”
But the big, blond diver was not about to be put off by what had become an intriguing idea. His eyes wandered lazily across Moriah’s face, down her loose-fitting black T-shirt and short denim skirt, along the length of her shapely legs. On the trip back, his eyes lingered at her chest, where the scooped neckline of her shirt revealed just a tantalizing hint of the swell of her breasts, and he lifted his beer thirstily to his finely chiseled lips. When he finally looked back at her face, Moriah began to feel more than a little frightened. This guy was huge. And he was drunk. There was no way to know what he was going to do next. She took a deep breath in order to steady the accelerated thumping of her heart and gripped her bottle of beer tightly, as if it were a weapon.
“You know,” the diver began slowly, allowing his hand to travel the short distance of the bar that separated them until his fingers settled gently over her wrist, “we could have a really good time together.”
“Not tonight, fella, I’m waiting for someone,” she lied with determination, hoping her voice didn’t illustrate any of the unsteadiness she felt.
His hand tightened on her wrist, and his smile became a disturbing grimace. “Yeah, tonight,” he whispered viciously. “All night. Any guy who’d leave you waiting here alone isn’t worth the effort. I don’t live too far from here, and we could—”
“You’ve got the wrong woman, pal,” Moriah insisted, trying to free herself from his iron grip. When had everything gone crazy? she wondered wildly. A moment ago she’d been sitting quietly, enjoying a beer while she contemplated with dread what awaited her with the arrival of her sisters the next day, and now she was suddenly fearing for her safety. How had this happened?
The muscle-bound giant’s grip grew tighter with her struggles. “Oh, you like to wrestle, huh?” he murmured angrily. “That’s fine, baby. I like it rough, too. Let’s go.” He stood then, his intentions stated, pulling Moriah to her feet along with him.
“No,” she said with as much conviction as she could muster in her growing panic. She glanced about furiously, but everyone else seemed oblivious to her situation. The bartender was pouring drinks with his back to her, and the diver’s friends were eagerly egging him on. “Let go of me, you big jerk,” she hissed anxiously.
“Ah, ah, ah,” the diver admonished her as he grasped her upper arm painfully with his other hand. “No name-calling. I don’t like that. It’s not polite.”
His voice had become malicious and low, and Moriah decided then and there that serious times called for serious crimes. She was just beginning to bend her knee, quickly assessing the exact amount of force necessary to drive it into the man’s private parts and completely incapacitate him with pain, when another man came suddenly out of nowhere, dropped his arm casually across her shoulder and cried out, “Darling! I’ve been looking all over for you! Hiya, Bart. What’s new?”
Simultaneously Moriah and the diver turned to stare at the newcomer, one face etched with surprise, the other with wariness. Moriah took in the man’s handsome features, ruggedly bronzed from the sun, his laughing amber eyes and the slightly curling hair that had probably once been a dark rich mahogany but was now also streaked with a dozen shades of copper and bronze. He was taller than the diver who still held on to her, but not nearly as physically overblown. This man was firm and muscular, yes, but as a result of physical labor and lean times, not from afternoons spent at a gym. Moriah could only stare at him speechless, but her tormentor obviously knew the man and was disappointed by his interruption.
“Austen,” the diver greeted the other man with a reluctant nod. “You know this babe?”
Austen cringed a little at Bart’s statement, but his smile didn’t falter. “Know her?” he asked, seemingly aghast. “Know her? Why, Muffy and I are practically engaged!”
“Muffy?” Moriah and Bart spoke as one.
Austen’s smile dropped somewhat. “It’s a pet name,” he explained to the diver. When he looked over at Moriah, the crooked grin reappeared. She looked as if she wanted to slug him instead of Bart, and he was the one trying to rescue her. When he’d entered The Green House, he’d almost turned right around to leave again. The popular night spot was even more packed than usual, and for some reason he didn’t feel like being part of a crowd tonight. Normally he enjoyed a party as much as the next guy, and the more people, the better.
