Going Back by Judith Arnold Page B

the house, he checked
himself before following her inside. He had enough sense to
understand that she might not want him in her home, and she
confirmed his guess by waving toward one of the wrought-iron porch
chairs which were placed around a matching glass-topped table.
“Would you like something to drink?” she asked, reaching for the
door knob.
    Brad supposed the situation might
be more palatable if he were crocked. “What have you got?” he
asked.
    “Apple juice, orange juice, ginger
ale, iced tea...”
    So much for getting crocked. “Iced
tea sounds good,” he said.
    She vanished into the house.
    Brad settled himself on the chair
and took a deep breath. The air here smelled much better than what
he’d been inhaling in Manhattan. It was clean, fresh, fragrant with
the scent of grass and spring blossoms. At Eric’s apartment,
whenever you opened a window you were nearly knocked off your feet
by the sour smell of automobile exhausts.
    Maybe air pollution was what had driven Daphne
to leave the party early last night, Brad thought
hopefully.
    He discarded that idea with a
silent curse. Daphne had left early for one reason only: because
her dick-head boyfriend had made a joke about her skill as a
lover—in front of Brad.
    She’d been drinking ginger ale at
the party last night, he recalled. All sorts of booze had been
available, but she’d taken her ginger ale straight. She had avoided
liquor the day she’d taken Brad out for lunch when he was
house-hunting, too. Maybe she was a teetotaler.
    If she was...perhaps he was being
paranoid, but it didn’t seem unreasonable to assume that he was to
blame for that, too. She’d been drinking the night of their
encounter at the frat house. Everyone had been drinking, but Daphne
had clearly been under the influence. Now she didn’t touch
alcohol—at least not when Brad was around. Maybe she wasn’t
actually a teetotaler, but simply was afraid to drink in Brad’s
presence.
    Brad sighed grimly. He was
definitely becoming paranoid.
    Daphne returned to the porch with
two tumblers of iced tea. She had taken off the bandanna and washed
her face, and she didn’t appear so flushed anymore. She set a glass
down in front of Brad at the table, then moved to the opposite side
of the table with her own glass. Brad eyed the two other chairs she
might have chosen to sit in; obviously, she wanted to sit as far as
possible from him.
    “Maybe I’m paranoid,” he said
aloud.
    She arched her eyebrows slightly,
then took a sip of her drink. “What makes you think
that?”
    “Well...” No, he wasn’t going to
waste his breath grilling her about why she’d chosen to sit on one
particular chair instead the others. He hadn’t driven all this way
on a beautiful Sunday afternoon to be evasive and cowardly. “You
left the party awfully early last night,” he noted.
    Again, he wondered if he was being
too blunt. If he was, Daphne seemed willing to accept his tone. She
didn’t even question his seeming non sequitur. “Did I miss anything
exciting?” she asked.
    He shrugged. “As far as I was
concerned, the highlight of the party was the time I spent in the
bedroom with you.” He could tell by her startled expression that
he’d expressed himself poorly, and he quickly came up with a more
tactful phrasing. “I mean talking with you, Daphne. It really felt
good to talk to you about my mother.”
    She nodded again. “Paul and I would
have stayed later,” she explained, “but he had an early day planned
for today, and he wanted to get home before midnight.”
    She was lying. Even if Brad hadn’t
been able to tell by her shifting green eyes and her fidgeting
fingers, he would have known she was lying. He knew why she’d left
early—and she knew he knew.
    “We’re going to have to talk about
it,” he resolved.
    “Talk about what?” she asked,
batting her eyes nervously.
    “You know damned well what.” He was
angry that she was forcing him to spell it out, but now that