The Rana Look читать онлайн

still grinning in approval of his saucy elderly aunt. “She’s something, isn’t she?” he asked Rana.“Yes, she is. I like her immensely.”“She’s outlived three husbands and one daughter. But none of that got her down.” He shook his head in perplexed admiration. “Where do you sit?”Rana moved toward her accustomed place setting, but he rounded the table with the grace of a danseur noble and moved her chair away from the table for her.Rana was tall. He was much taller. It was odd, and disconcertingly pleasant, to have a man tower over her. Even if she were wearing the highest high heels, Trent Gamblin would be taller than she.When she was seated in the rosewood lyre-back chair, he took his place at the head of the table. “How long have you lived here?”“Six months.”“Before that?”“Back East,” she answered obliquely.He grinned broadly. “I didn’t think that was a Texas accent.”She laughed softly. “Hardly.” To keep from looking at him, she toyed with her spoon, tracing the elaborate silver pattern with the pad of her middle finger.“Did you know the other boarder?”“Guest.”“Huh?”“Your aunt calls us guests. She says ‘boarder’ sounds too commercial.”“Ahh.” He nodded. His throat was brown and strong. His shirt was opened at the collar, and Rana could see a healthy crop of curling dark hair in the V. Looking at it made her stomach feel weightless, so she averted her eyes. “I’ll have to rely on you to acquaint me with the house rules. What time is curfew?”He was teasing again, and, as before, it annoyed her. She had known plenty of men who played these kinds of flirting games, some of them with more talent than Trent Gamblin. They were games in which a woman was inevitably the prey and a man the hunter. Rana had always resented the masculi