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He drew back. His hand went to his head and he scowled down at her.
“I know,” she said, holding up a hand of her own. “You had too much to drink and you mistook me for your date.”
“Not much hope of that. Unlike you, she dresses like a lady,” he said, angry at his own weakness. “You look like a call girl!”
She hit him. It was an impulse that she almost regretted. She turned and went back inside, heading straight to the restroom to repair the damage he’d done to her makeup and put cold water on her lips to reduce the swelling. Now if only Dana didn’t show up in there!
She didn’t. Meadow fixed her makeup, restored her hair with the small brush she kept in her evening bag, and put cold water on her lips with a wet paper towel. After a minute or two, she felt normal enough to return to the dance floor.
She went out the door with her head high. She hoped Dal had to explain that red handprint on his hard cheek to his date. It would make her feel better about her response to him. It was an elegant dress she was wearing, even if it was red! And she didn’t look like a hooker!
Jeff was standing by the punch bowl, looking morose.
“What’s wrong?” Meadow asked gently.
He glanced down at her and forced a smile. “Nothing. Nothing at all. Care to dance?”
She was thinking of ways to refuse him when Gil joined them.
“Who can do a wild cha-cha?” he asked his coworkers. “Please say no,” he added to Jeff, who was still looking glum. “I’d hate dancing with your left feet, boss.”
That brought a laugh from Jeff. “No, I can’t do a cha-cha.”
Gil raised his eyebrows at Meadow.
“You bet I can,” she said, and slung her little purse back over her shoulder. “You’re on!”
Gil led her onto the dance floor, where the Latin beat was pulsating like a heartbeat.
Meadow could dance. Her mother had sent her for lessons, to make sure she had the social graces. It had devastated her that Meadow wanted to be a policewoman instead of a debutante. Her mother had even picked out a nice rich man for her. Meadow had dodged the introduction and gone back to work.
“You’re good!” Gil exclaimed with a laugh.
She grinned. “So are you.”
They moved around the dance floor, oblivious to the angry, dark-eyed man who glared at them from the sidelines.
“Well, she can dance,” Dana murmured reluctantly.
“She looks like a call girl in that damned dress,” he said shortly. “She should have worn something sedate.”
“Why?” Dana asked curiously.
He glanced down at her. He was aware that he wasn’t acting rationally. He was still vibrating from the long, sweet session with Meadow outside the building, in the freezing cold. Neither of them had even noticed it, they were so wrapped up in each other. Not in her finest hour could Dana have ever competed with Meadow, not that way. He was fond of the woman at his side, he enjoyed her company. He even enjoyed kissing her, although he’d gone no further than kisses—bad business to make a local businesswoman into his mistress and flaunt it. But kissing Meadow Dawson was like walking into fire. In his experience, and there was plenty of it, he’d never come across a woman who went to his head the way she did.
But she still had white picket fence written all over her, and he wasn’t a settling man.
“What happened to your cheek?” Dana asked, frowning as she noticed it.
“The call girl and I had what you might think was a confrontation,” he murmured, and sipped some more of his drink. “She took offense at what I said.”
“If you called her that, no wonder,” Dana said, driven to defend a fellow member of her sex against such an unwarranted attack. “Dal, that’s an expensive dress. There’s nothing about it that would provoke any man to say such a thing. I know you dislike her, but that’s just going too far.”
“You’re supposed to be on my side,” he flashed at her.
“Well, I am. Of course, I am,” she replied. “But she has a reputation that most women would envy. Even me,” she had to confess. She knew people talked about her, speculated about her, since she’d been dating Dal, who everyone locally knew was a rounder.
“What sort of reputation?” he drawled.
