Rainey's Song Ch. 04

"Thanks," he drawled. "I think I'll take that as a compliment."

Peeking her left eye open she couldn't hold back her laughter when she looked at him, only to find that he'd turned toward her and was fluttering his eyelashes like some coquettish male version of Betty Boop. "Okay, that's pushing it a little," she grinned.

"I figured," he smiled and glanced at her. "I may have long eyelashes," he said, making Rainey laugh again as he made a face at the statement, "but your eyes—they're amazing."

Ignoring the shiver that ran through her, Rainey rolled the eyes in question and leaned her head against the seat. "They're green," she said as if that one sentence explained it all.

Obviously it didn't because Aidan looked over at her with a bemused expression on his face. "So what?"

"No one has green eyes. I grew up feeling like a freak. All of my cousins," she tossed a hand out in front of her in a vague gesture, "every single one of them are blonde, blue-eyed All-American automatons."

"And you want to be an automaton," Aidan asked as he slowly pulled the car off of the road and parked in front of a quaint, brick apartment complex ringed by stately evergreens and shimmering lawns of rain-kissed grass. Rainey hadn't been aware of the fact that they were already at his apartment because she was so caught up in their conversation. It was a strange feeling for her to lose herself completely with someone that she barely knew. She'd yet to decide whether she liked this new phenomenon.

Quiet settled around them as he shut off the engine and sat watching her, and then she realized that she hadn't answered his question. "No, I don't want to be an automaton," she said. "It's just that my grandpa--my mom's dad--was Italian so I inherited my coloring and hair from him while the rest of my family, my aunts and uncles and my dad—all Irish. So, it was kind of hard growing up. My cousins always teased me and told me I was adopted."

Aidan couldn't hide his snicker of amusement but when she looked at him with an incredulously raised eyebrow, he held up a hand and schooled his features into a look of seriousness. "I'm sorry, that's not funny." But the grin broke through again and Rainey found herself laughing along with him.

"It is a little funny," she said thoughtfully. "My mom always used to say, 'What doesn't kill you will only make you stronger.'"

"I bet that didn't help at all, did it?"

She shook her head and laughed. "Nope. I was eight years old; I could have cared less about some useless colloquialism. But, I guess she was trying to toughen me up. I *did* tend to cry a lot."

Aidan's ensuing burst of laughter sent haphazard shivers down her spine. "We definitely wouldn't have gotten along as kids. I was a royal terror. God, I can only wonder how my mom got me out of all of the trouble I got in."

"I can imagine,' Rainey said, regarding him from beneath her lashes.

He leaned into her, casually resting his right arm along the back of her seat. "Can you? So, what kind of kid do you think I was?"

Rainey pretended to think long and hard, drawing her lower lip between her teeth in a way that had Aidan's blood boiling. "I think you were...mischievous and loud. I had a neighbor boy like you. He'd always climb out fence and pick apples off of our tree."

He gave her that half-there smile again. "I might have climbed a few fences in my day. But that's part of being a kid."

Shaking her head, Rainey played with the zipper on her jacket. " I never climbed trees or fences or anything. I was too afraid I'd fall and my mom would kill me for ruining my clothes."

His chuckle was low-pitched and unassumingly attractive. "Wow, sounds like you needed some adventure."

"If adventure is synonymous with anything that involved my getting dirty and/or bloody, it was out for me," she threw back, wryly. "My mom's a clean freak, and believe me, you don't want to piss off an Italian woman."

"I'll keep that in mind," Aidan said, then peered up through the windshield at a gray, angry-looking sky. "In the meantime, I think we'd better get inside before it starts raining."

At his words, Rainey unclipped her seatbelt and got out of the car. He came around and led her toward the far end of the complex where they climbed a set of stone stairs with a wrought-iron railing to his apartment. He unlocked the door and held it open for her to precede him inside. Everything was quiet and still, cast in dark shadows as he moved past her, laying his keys on a small table in the entryway, and flipped on the lights.

She wasn't sure what she'd expected his home to be. Aidan was a bachelor, so maybe mismatched furniture, dishes piled near the sink and random debris scattered here and there, but he surprised her. The entryway held a closet on the left and opened up to the kitchen on the right, which, Rainey saw, wasn't a haphazard mess at all. She noted with interest that the refrigerator was nearly covered with pictures that she couldn't make out from this distance.

Making her way down the short hall and into the living room, she smiled when she saw that his furniture was indeed mismatched but not at all in the way that she had envisioned. A deep blue, overstuffed couch rested against the near wall, facing a large, flat-screen TV on the opposite wall. The glass-topped coffee table in front of the couch was flanked by an apparently well-used recliner on one side and a blue-and-white love seat situated beneath a picture window on the other.

The corner between the couch and the loveseat was filled by a dark oak bookshelf full of dog-eared novels that drew Rainey toward them like a beacon. Running her fingers over the row of books directly before her gaze, she read the titles out loud, "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, The Da Vinci Code, Leaves of Grass, Siddhartha, Atlas Shrugged, Crime and Punishment..." She stopped and turned to look at Aidan who was standing near the couch watching her.

"You know," she said," you could almost teach a high school English class just from the books you've got here."

Coming toward her, he tossed his coat over the arm of the couch and smiled. "Almost? The collection isn't complete?"

Tilting her head, Rainey turned back to the books. "No...it seems like you're missing all of the boring ones. So, pretty much the ones I skimmed in high school."

Her back was still to Aidan but she knew he was smiling when he asked, "Which ones would those be?"

"The Grapes of Wrath, Heart of Darkness..." she laughed as he groaned his agreement of the mediocrity of the books she'd listed. "God, somewhere, my English teacher would probably have a heart attack to hear me put down the classics," she said, a guilty expression on her face.

Aidan shrugged. "You can't win with everyone." Nodding her head in agreement, she said, "True. And Heart of Darkness definitely wasn't a winner with me."

The air seemed to crackle with invisible electricity as Aidan drew closer to her and their shoulders brushed together. She still had her jacket on so her skin didn't even touch his, even so, she was shocked to find that her pulse sped up at the light whisper of his body against hers.

"And here I was with the impression that you were the model student, straight A's and community service," he said quietly, resting an elbow on a lower level of the shelf.

Struggling to hide her reaction to him and an inward cringe at the fact that he'd pegged her so completely, she flipped through the pages of an instructional book about photography. "What gave you that idea?"

"You're just so quiet and...I don't know...dutiful?"

Closing the book with a snap she looked at him like he'd insulted her. "Dutiful?"

From the look on her face, Aidan didn't know whether he should back away or laugh. Instead, he shrugged a shoulder. "Okay, that kind of came out the wrong way..." he began.

"Yeah, you make me sound like some 1950's housewife off of 'Father Knows Best."

On a laugh he held up his hands like he was preparing to protect himself should she decide to slug him. "That's not what I meant. It's just that you seem like the kind of person who always followed the rules."

Replacing the book on the shelf and she cast an appraising glance over him. "As opposed to you who was, let me guess... a lady's man, an athlete, everybody's best friend. Too cool for school but your teachers loved you despite it?"

"I was not a lady's man," he protested, and then grinned sheepishly when she gave him a look of disbelief. "Okay, maybe I was for a while, but then Julia and I got together and..." He stopped talking abruptly. Damn, how had she wriggled herself back into the picture? It had been fine, just him and Rainey, with her finally talking to him and looking him in the eye instead of cringing away from every word he said like it was the end of the world.

Years, Aidan thought, it had been years since he'd even considered being friends with a woman and now, when he was at that point Rainey, thoughts of Julia and all the ways she'd hurt him came flooding back. He felt himself sinking behind a wall of nonchalance to hide his darkening mood.

Rainey felt the shift, though. She could see it in his face, the way he seemed to be fighting some inner battle against himself. He'd mentioned a woman's name—Julia. Someone from his past, that much Rainey understood, and from the subtle way he seemed to tense up and withdraw from the light banter they'd been sharing she knew it was something he'd like to stay in the past. Still, she wanted to ask him what happened. Get him to talk to her, but she was already overwhelmed by the fact that she was able to talk to *him* so easily. How was she supposed to get *him* to talk to *her*?

Clearing his throat Aidan went into the kitchen through a swinging door to the side of the couch, asking as he went, "Do you want something to drink?" Not knowing what else to do, Rainey followed him and watched from the doorway as he opened the refrigerator.

"Um, what do you have," she asked.

Caught up in his rummaging, his head disappeared behind the door and his voice was a little muffled when he answered. "Looks like...a couple of beers, white grape juice and..." he shifted some things around, "...an industrial-size bottle of V8 juice that my mom keeps insisting that I drink."

"I'll take the grape juice," Rainey said on a laugh and when he'd poured them both a glass, grabbing an apple for himself, they went back into the living room and sat down on the couch. "Does your mom live in the city," Rainey asked as he took a bite of the apple.

Shaking his head, he swallowed before answering. "She's over in Bellevue," he said, referring to a town about twenty minutes outside of Seattle. "But that doesn't stop her from dropping in on me at random moments to fill me in on the latest happenings in her life, fill my fridge with V8 juice and nag me about not dating."

"Sounds like my mom," Rainey said, taking a sip from her glass before putting it down on the coffee table. She relaxed against the plump couch cushions and let her head sink into them. "I love her to death, but..."

"Sometimes, it'd be nice if she'd just butt out," Aidan finished for her and they both laughed. Without thinking about it, he stretched his arm across the back of the couch so that his hand was a breath away from Rainey's head. Stray tendrils of her hair tickled his hand and he couldn't resist the urge to touch her. Reaching down, he wrapped a few strands around his index and middle finger, stroking slowly with his thumb.

The feel of his hand in her hair distracted Rainey. There were a few inches of space between them so the only parts of their bodies that touched were his fingertips and her hair but she felt like he'd caressed her from head to foot. Her stomach pitted and rolled and she had trouble keeping up her end of the conversation.

"Exactly. When...when I was leaving for college she got all panicky and gave me advice about dating...as if I'd need it." She glanced up at Aidan and felt an odd mix of pleasure and discomfort at the look on his face; he was completely absorbed by his hand on her hair and she almost thought he hadn't heard her.

"Why wouldn't you," he asked. His voice had taken on a low timbre that gave her a light dusting of goose bumps.

"Why wouldn't I, what?" Rainey licked her suddenly dry lips and felt a fine sweat break out all over her body as she saw Aidan's eyes move to her mouth. His eyes came to hers, that piercing blue that seemed to burn into her flesh, and she completely forgot what they were talking about. He let her question hang in the air unanswered.

Aidan was a man who prided himself on his self-control and level thinking. They were two of the things that made him such a good journalist: when a story was falling apart, he kept his cool and found a solution to the problem. With Rainey the solution wasn't only unclear, there just didn't seem to be one. Well, there was one he could think of but that would end up leading them down roads best left undiscovered.

Even as that prudent thought occurred to him, he was beginning to find that prudence and self-control didn't mean a damn thing when it came to Rainey. Every single stitch of logical thinking flew out of his mind when she was close to him and her scent was assaulting his senses. He wanted her. He admitted to himself bluntly and not without an inner battle, but when he locked his gaze with hers—those gorgeous green eyes—he knew that she could see the desire glowing in his eyes. He didn't care.

Rainey couldn't breathe. Every ounce of awareness seemed to be swallowed up by her nearness to Aidan and the intense way he was looking at her. It had to be some kind of...mistake, didn't it? He couldn't really be staring at her with such undisguised need, could he? Her heart began to pound violently in her chest as a single thought occurred to her: he wants me.

Instead of pleasure, the realization sparked a belly-deep panic. Aidan wasn't the kind of guy someone like her dated. He was the prom king prototype, the athlete, the sex god, for God's sake. Not the sweet, quiet, average guy she'd always imagined herself settling for; someone down to earth who would understand that she had more to offer than love handles. No, Aidan wasn't what she'd prepared herself for and she could hardly be sure what he wanted from her—all she knew was that anything she had with him would lead to a broken heart.

Realizing what a huge mistake it would be if she sat there letting him touch her for much longer, she slid away from him as quickly as she could, forcing him to let her hair slide out from between his fingers. Standing up, Rainey walked awkwardly around the coffee table in a desperate effort to put some space between them. Her heartbeat pounded violently in her ears and her skin was tingly; they were two sensations that she was beginning to associate with being near Aidan.

She kept her back to him; her arms wrapped tightly around her upper body, and willed herself to calm down. Willed him to say something—anything—to ease the tension hanging in the air. Seconds dragged on imperceptibly until she heard him let out a heavy breath and push himself up from the couch.

"My office is back here," he said, walking around the other side of the coffee table—leaving space between them—and heading down a hall to the left.

Having no choice but to follow, Rainey trailed after him, biting her lip and silently cursing herself for acting like such an idiot. Men touched women all the time, so why had she acted like he'd palmed her breast when all he'd done was play with her hair? She could have been a little more sophisticated, couldn't she? *Stupid, stupid, stupid...* she thought to herself.

The words flashing through Aidan's head were much more severe. Why the hell couldn't he just leave her alone? He couldn't seem to control himself and that was something that he couldn't live with; self-control was everything to him. It'd be better if he just pretended like nothing had happened—-again.

Pushing open a door at the end of the hallway, he turned to Rainey with an uncomfortable whisper of a smile. "Promise that you won't judge the system."

"What?" Her eyebrows rose at the strange request. Inside the room, his hand fiddled with the light switch, but he hesitated to turn it on. "I have a...unique filing system. I just figured I'd warn you." With that, he turned the light on and stepped into the room.

Rainey's brow furrowed in confusion, but she followed him inside. The room was white-walled, but it was far from plain, with long, narrow tables lining three of the four walls. The furthest one nearly overflowed with paperwork and photography equipment, while the other two tables seemed ready to split under the weight of half a dozen lawyer boxes.

The wall with the window was home to a black, metal desk and an expensive-looking leather desk chair. On it, Aidan's laptop was nearly covered by papers and random black-and-white photo prints, a few old issues of magazines he'd freelanced for, an AP stylebook and another book called 1001 Synonyms for the Lazy Man.

That, compounded with the sight of a bright red beanbag chair in the near corner, and Rainey's first reaction was laughter. Part of it was amusement at his "system" but the other part was relief; relief that, in getting his office into shape, she'd have something else to think about besides being in *his* house and working side-by-side with *him.*

"What's so funny," Aidan asked with a slight air of defensiveness belied by a huge grin.

"Nothing I..." Rainey scanned the room again. "I thought you said Lyn was exaggerating about you being disorganized."

He flicked a thumb toward his desk. "This isn't disorganization, it's...evidence of my free-spirited personality."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow. "More like your *disorganized* personality."

"Hey," he exclaimed with an amused chuckle, walking over to his desk to rest a hand on the back of his chair. "I thought you said you wouldn't judge the system."

"No," Rainey said, her foot pushing at a brown box on the floor labeled 'Files and Stuff,' "you asked me not to but I definitely never agreed."

He sighed with a dramatic flair, flopping indolently into the leather chair. "Fine. So, I guess that clean-freak streak you mentioned your mom has showed up in you, too, huh?"

"Not really...," she laughed when he gave her a look. "Okay, a little, but I can handle a bit of a mess. But this...how do you ever find anything?"

"Simple. I use the alternating stack system."

"What?"

"You know, you take a stack of papers and lay it down," he picked up a stack of papers from the haphazard array on his desk to illustrate his point, "then, you take another stack and lay it the opposite direction on the first pile."

"And that works for you," she asked, her brow furrowed with a mix of amusement and frustration.

"Perfectly. Well, at least until the stack gets too high and gravity starts taking over."

He said it with such a serious expression on his face that Rainey couldn't help but laugh at him. "I'm starting to think that Lyn had a point when she told me that you need all the help you can get."

" I'm hurt," he drawled in his thickest English accent, one hand pressed dramatically against his heart.

"Right." Rainey picked up the box closest to her and moved toward the beanbag chair. "I'll just be over here organizing your not-so-unorganized life."

Aidan swiveled in his chair to watch her. "You're just going to sit there and file stuff while I work?"

She didn't look up, just made a face as she pulled a stack of crinkled papers out of the box. "Mm-hmm."

He didn't know if he liked the idea of her being so close to him. His senses were still on edge from that close-call in the living room, but having her sitting there behind him, touching all of his things...that would be a new level of distraction. "You, um, don't want to work in the living room? That recliner out there is like sitting on a marshmallow."