Free Loving Piper by Charlotte Lockheart

with Deirdre yet, and when they came to nothing she didn’t want to have to endure Deirdre’s sympathy. But her reticence in talking to Deirdre hadn’t prevented Rob from infiltrating her thoughts with regular frequency. Actually her dreams, too. And those had been X-rated. She who only liked fluffy movies was dreaming in porn. It would be a relief to see him in real life with his clothes on.
    For the past eight days, she hadn’t seen him once, in any state of dress. Coincidence or intentional? She didn’t know him that well, maybe he was the sort who ran and hid when presented with a difficult situation. Not her. When a problem arose, she found it was simply easier to meet the situation head-on, deal with the immediate discomfort and establish the new normal. And what exactly was the new normal now that they had a history in which a kiss overrode all other features of their short history. She blushed and shook her head. She couldn’t remember the last time she had so thoroughly dissected a scene from her past, and she still wasn’t tired of it.
    She manhandled the clothes at the front of the closet to reach less-used possibilities at the back, the party girl section. She had brought far too many clothes with her, and wondered why she’d chosen these particular items, what ball she’d anticipated an invitation to. Crazy, a pink taffeta cocktail dress. And a couple of skimpy risqué numbers that she hadn’t had the courage to wear even once. She pulled them out and held them up one at a time, dancing in front of the floor-length mirror and letting her head fall back as she modeled them for herself. Manny had never been further from her mind.
     
    Rob was walking by his front window when he saw Piper embracing a dark-haired man who was not much taller than her. They separated and he caught a glimpse of the man’s face. Even from this distance, Rob could see intense dark eyes. The man had other equally strong facial features—substantial nose and mouth. Rugged, a man’s man. He was the kind of man who could serve as a visual definition of the male of the species.
    Rob didn’t like him. He was undoubtedly just short of Early Paleozoic in his attitudes about the environment, equality between the sexes, probably spent his free time chasing his trilobite friends in violent video games.
    So, what was Piper doing with him? Was that he-man her boyfriend? Of course, Piper could have a boyfriend—just because she hadn’t mentioned one didn’t mean he didn’t exist. He’d wondered about it earlier and then let it go when no boyfriend surfaced. It shouldn’t have mattered one way or another, but he’d been relieved.
    Now the man was opening the passenger door of a Hummer. He hadn’t noticed the make of the behemoth in his driveway. Good Lord, Rob had kissed someone who had kissed someone who owned a Hummer. As Piper stepped up into the vehicle, Rob finally looked directly at her. He had never seen her in that particular sundress, red with tiny see-through straps. Her hair, shiny and black, was pulled into some kind of twist at the back. A few tendrils had come loose from the rest, and she was laughing. She looked radiantly beautiful. She had gotten all dolled up for this Neanderthal. Rob obviously didn’t know the real Piper.
     
    “What’s wrong, Daddy?”
    “Nothing, Jennie.”
    “Then why did you say that word you’re not supposed to say?”
    Rob didn’t have a ready answer for that. There was no reason for his bad mood. Actually he wasn’t in a bad mood—things just weren’t cooperating today. The noodles boiled over and then he forgot about them and they were a mushy mess about to be topped with a creamy tomato sauce featuring flecks of burnt onion. He’d gone ahead with the recipe even after the initial mishap with the onions, hoping the disagreeable odor would disappear. Just when he thought he was getting somewhere as a cook, the basic tenets would vanish right in front of him. Some culinary mistakes