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 she’ll go home with some guy who’ll treat her exactly as Oliver predicted, and next week she’ll start the whole cycle again. She always insists on asking Oliver what he thinks of her clothes, even though she has to know what he’s going to say.”
Someone else interrupted that conversation. “Hey, Miranda, what do you know about entertaining kids?”
She turned to the brunette on her left. “As little as possible. Why do you ask, Bev?”
Bev shrugged. “My brother’s bringing his three kids to visit Mom next month, when school’s out, and she’s asked me to help entertain them. You always know something fun to do. I thought you might have some ideas.”
“Honey, my ideas never involve children,” Miranda returned with an exaggerated shudder.
A round of laughter answered her words.
“What?” someone asked. “No nieces or nephews?”
She started to shake her head, and then she stopped herself. “Oh, wait. I do have a couple of nephews.”
Oliver raised his carefully arched blond eyebrows. “You forgot you’re an aunt?”
“I don’t think of myself as an aunt,” she said with a slight shrug. “I haven’t seen the kids more than a couple of times in their lives—my sister doesn’t stay in one place for very long.”
“My brother’s the same way,” someone else said. “I wouldn’t mind seeing my nieces, actually, but they’re living in Singapore now, if you can believe it. My brother has a fabulous job there. He—”
Not particularly interested, Miranda tuned out and took a sip of her drink, thinking about her older sister for the first time in ages. She wondered where Lisa was these days, and whether she was taking any better care of her five-year-old twins than she had been the last time she’d breezed through town, hoping to bum a few dollars from Miranda.
The idea of having her own children made Miranda practically choke with claustrophobic panic. Nothing would be more certain to put an end to the carefree, independent lifestyle she had spent her entire youth plotting to achieve.
Maybe Lisa didn’t mind dragging her conceived-by-accident twins around on her own reckless adventures, but Miranda had always firmly believed that if someone was going to bring children into the world, the kids’ well-being should come first—unlike her own parents, of course. Being childless, she could be as self-centered and irresponsible as she liked, and no one would have to suffer for it.
She couldn’t help thinking for a moment about her sexy accountant. Mark Wallace seemed like a good father, stable and loving and dependable. She didn’t know what had happened to his kids’ mother, but Mark seemed to have committed himself completely to making sure his girls had a happy childhood and a decent upbringing, even if it meant his own life was a bit dull, in Miranda’s opinion. Still, she had to admire his dedication.
Unfortunately for the twins’ sakes, Lisa had a different view of parenting than Mark, or even Miranda. Lisa saw no reason for motherhood to interfere with her lifestyle in the least.
There had been no fun in their own childhoods, Lisa had reminded Miranda the last time they had seen each other. Her kids were going to have fun. No horribly restrictive rules, no rigid schedules, no harsh punishments if they didn’t toe some arbitrary and impossible line.
The boys were probably monsters, but that was Lisa’s problem, Miranda thought with a shrug. Miranda had an evening of music and camaraderie to enjoy, and she was wasting time thinking about serious matters.
Chapter Two
By Thursday of that week, Miranda was uncharacteristically restless. There wasn’t much going on at the moment in her job as an assistant buyer for Little Rock-based Ballard’s Department Stores. She had been to a club nearly every night for the past two weeks, and she wasn’t in the mood that night. But she didn’t want to sit in her tiny apartment and watch TV, either.
She checked the messages on her machine when she arrived home from work, hoping maybe someone would have an idea for an evening’s entertainment that intrigued her. Brandi’s was the first voice she heard. “Hi, Miranda, it’s me. There’s going to be a new band at Vino’s tonight and I heard the lead singer is really hot. Some of us will be there around eight if you want to join us.”
“I don’t think so.” Miranda erased that message and moved on to the next.
“Yo, ’Randa, it’s Robbie. I haven’t heard from you in a couple of weeks. What, did you drop off the face of the earth or somepin?” He chuckled at his own wit, then continued,
