This Love Will Go On by Shirley Larson Page A

one.”
    Raine straightened and the action drew his eyes down the length of her slender figure. The blue silky thing clung in all the right places. Was she going all out, dressing up for that clown she was with?
    “You haven't met Doug Martin, have you, Jade?” 
    Her voice sounded different when she said Jade’s name. Did she hate him for what happened that night? She had a right to.  He'd had too damn much to drink.  He'd stopped going to Harry's after that.  “Doug, Jade Kincaid.  Tate's father.”
    Doug Martin smiled a broad smile that irritated the hell out of Jade and stuck out his hand.  “Glad to meet you. I've enjoyed getting to know your boy.”
    Tate had told him Aunt Raine's “friend” had taken them both to a movie in the afternoon last weekend.   Jade hadn't liked it then, and he didn't like it now. He took the man's hand, said “Martin,” and nodded coolly.
    Raine stepped close to Jade and said in an undertone, “Doug and I can amuse Tate for a minute if he's getting bored.”
    He didn't need a strange man entertaining his son. “He's all right.”
    Tate, sensitive to every nuance in his father's voice, glanced at him in surprise. He hadn't missed what Raine said.  “Why can't I go with Aunt Raine, Daddy?”
    Jade gave Tate a bland, mocking look.  “I might get frightened, standing here all by myself.”
    Raine's eyes flashed over him and the normally guarded expression dropped away for an instant, revealing a raw emotion.  Before he could decide what it was, it vanished.  He stared at her, wondering what it was she had felt so strongly it had made her eyes go molten silver. With those silvery eyes and that hair streaked with gold, she was easily the most attractive woman in the room.
    Raine was coolly polite as she said, “Natalie Forsyth asked about you a moment ago.”
    He had gone into the bank the day after that episode with Raine, and Natalie had smiled at him with such obvious appreciation and suggested casually that they spend New Year's Eve together.  He'd agreed…and cursed himself later for it. Natalie had been pleasant enough, but he simply wasn't interested in her. He'd almost forgotten about that one night out, until now. Obviously, the Verylon grapevine was in good working order. He should have guessed he was at the top of the interest list. But Raine scrupulously avoided gossip, he knew that. Both she and Julia tried as much as possible to squelch rumors. Then why this veiled reference to Natalie?
    Unless, holy hell.  Was she still nursing a remnant of that adolescent crush she'd developed on him when he first married Michele? She couldn't be. He'd done everything he could to crush it, even making her believe he'd have loveless sex with her. He didn't want her damned devotion. Love was a cruel joke. Maybe it worked for other people but it didn't work for him.
    “If it’s all right with you,” Raine's frosty tone brought him back reality.  “I’m going to take Tate out into the lobby to get him a soft drink out of the machine.”
    “Go ahead,” he muttered, wondering how much of his thoughts he had betrayed by the look on his face.
    Raine took Tate by the hand and led him out of the noisy room.  Jade found a wall to lean against and later, when she came back guiding Tate past the scattered chairs and tables with one hand and carrying a bright red can of soft drink in the other, he tried not to watch her. But his eyes didn't obey instructions. Raine settled Tate and herself at a table and offered Tate the drink container. After he had taken a few sips, she engaged the youngster in a complicated hand-clapping game that required concentration and coordination, and Jade gave up the struggle to look elsewhere and openly watched them.
    A sing-song kind of chant went with the hand-clapping and Raine’s soft voice was mesmerizing. Tate concentrated fiercely, his mouth open, his eyes on Raine. They made a picture that could have graced any magazine cover, the slim,