Hoops by Patricia McLinn Read Free Book Online Page B

extensively.”
    “Carolyn,” objected Helene, “you know how confusing it is up there with all those streets twisting and turning on themselves. Why, I’ve been there hundreds of times, and I still get lost, so imagine how hard it would be for someone new.”
    “I do have a tendency to get lost,” murmured C.J.
    Carolyn shot him a dark look under frowning brows. He returned one of utter innocence.
    Stewart took the cue. “Then, of course, it certainly would be better—”
    “But I’m sure Mr. Draper has a guest he’s bringing tonight. I don’t want to intrude—”
    “Nope. No guest,” he contradicted cheerfully.
    “There. It’s all settled.” Satisfaction suffused Helene’s face.
    “No, it’s not settled,” Carolyn said. “I think I should go with you and Stewart as planned.”
    “If you’re concerned about driving with C.J. up those roads, Carolyn, I can assure you, I’ve ridden with him, and he’s an excellent driver,” Stewart said.
    Carolyn opened her mouth for another attempt at escape, but C.J.’s drawl intruded. “I don’t think it’s the driving that’s worrying the professor. I think it’s the arriving. You see,” he explained, “if we arrive together, people might think we’re together and that could be awkward for the professor.”
    Stewart and Helene turned questioning eyes to her, and Carolyn felt her shoulders sink under the hopelessness of extricating herself.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t want people to think they were together; she was just uncomfortable with him. She hadn’t worked out yet in her own mind why—an oddity in itself. But she knew she definitely didn’t want it brought up now. How he’d stumbled so close to the truth, she didn’t know. But since he had, she could only deny it.
    “Not at all, Mr. Draper,” she said, looking away quickly from the laughter in his blue eyes before she lost her temper. “Of course I’ll drive with you. Heaven knows we wouldn’t want to risk our new basketball coach driving off a cliff, would we?”
    * * * *
    Graciousness and stoicism are the keys to getting through this with dignity, Carolyn told herself as she smoothed the taffeta skirt of her new dress. She’d put the black sheath on first. But she’d seen herself looking staid and boring in too many mirrors. In the end she’d flung the sheath on the bed and pulled on the teal dress with a tingling—and unaccustomed—sense of daring.
    The color added glow to her hair and heightened the natural pink blush of her fair skin. The tight bodice molded to the curves of her breasts and the narrowness of her waist. The skirt crackled around her with whispering touches against her silk-hosed legs. She felt the headiness of a woman who knew she looked good. But it didn’t prevent a surge of nerves at the sound of her doorbell.
    The porch light glinted on the fair strands of C.J.’s hair, and a smile barely pulled up the corners of his mouth. His double-breasted navy blue topcoat kept the perfect line of his squared shoulders and dropped without a wrinkle or fold. Beneath it the sharp crease of charcoal-gray slacks showed. The coat’s V opening displayed a crisp white shirt and rich burgundy silk tie.
    Wordlessly she stepped back as he entered.
    “This is for you.” He handed her a brown paper bag as he closed the door behind them. He shrugged out of his coat and laid it over the back of a chair. His suit jacket was as trim as the topcoat. The precise fit across the shoulders and down his long arms and torso proclaimed it tailored for him by a master.
    “I can understand your surprise, Professor,” he said with only the brightness of his eyes betraying his sympathetic expression. “But you really ought to do something about that—” he nodded toward the bag she still held “—before it drips on your dress.”
    Abruptly the cold penetrating her hands registered in Carolyn’s mind. “What is it?”
    “Ice cream. And I think it’s melting.”
    “Ice cream! What