“You were right about Keri and me,” he said from behind her.
She bumped into the doorjamb. “What?”
He gazed past her toward the refrigerator. “I wouldn’t mind a Coke if you have one.”
She wanted to grab him by his white shirt collar and shake him until he told her exactly what he meant, but she restrained herself. “Of course I was right about you and Keri. I’m a trained professional.”
He loosened the knot on his necktie and unbuttoned his collar. “Refresh my memory. Exactly what kind of training have you had?”
“My nana was a superstar. It’s in my blood.” She was going to scream if he didn’t tell her what had happened. She grabbed a Coke can from the refrigerator and passed it over.
“Keri and I were too much alike.” He propped his shoulder against the wall and sipped his Coke. “It took half a dozen phone calls just to schedule lunch.”
The gray cloud that had been following her for three weeks swept off to spoil somebody else’s life. She withdrew an ancient powder blue Tupperware container from the refrigerator, along with what was left of the lunchtime Whopper she hadn’t felt like finishing. “Was the breakup tough?”
“Not exactly. We played phone tag for so long we had to do it by e-mail.”
“No broken hearts, then.”
His jaw set in a stubborn line. “We should have been great together.”
“You know my opinion about that.”
“The Fisher-Price theory. How could I forget?”
As she cut up her leftover hamburger and mixed it with the spaghetti, she wondered why he hadn’t phoned her with the news instead of showing up in person. She slid the plate into the microwave.
He wandered over to inspect the yellowed diet plan she’d stuck to the refrigerator when she’d moved in. “We didn’t sleep together,” he said, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on a low-carb fish dinner.
She reined in her joy. “Not my business.”
“Damned right it’s not, but you’re nosy.”
“Hey, I’ve been too busy building my empire to obsess over your sex life. Or lack thereof.” She resisted the urge to do a little soft shoe as she grabbed a pot holder, pulled out the plate, and set it on the table. “You’re not my only client, you know.”
He found a fork in the silverware drawer then sat down and studied his plate. “Is that a french fry in my spaghetti?”
“Nouvelle cuisine.” She reached into the freezer for the carton of Moose Tracks ice cream she hadn’t felt like touching in three weeks.
“So how is business?” he asked.
As she pried off the lid, she told him about her party and her new clients. His smile held genuine pleasure. “Congratulations. Your hard work is paying off.”
“It looks like it.”
“So how are things with you and lover boy?”
It took her a moment to figure out who he was talking about. She dug into the Moose Tracks. “Better all the time.”
“That’s funny. I saw him at Waterworks a couple of nights ago in a lip-lock with a Britney Spears wannabe.”
She excavated a ribbon of chocolate sauce. “All part of my plan. I don’t want him to feel suffocated.”
“Trust me. He doesn’t.”
“You see. It’s working.”
He cocked an eyebrow at her. “This is only one man’s opinion, but I think you were better off with Raoul.”
She grinned, stuck the lid back on the container, and returned the ice cream to the freezer. While he ate, she washed a saucepan she’d left soaking in the sink and answered more of his questions about the party. Considering how tired he was, she appreciated his interest.
When he finished eating, he brought his plate over. He’d devoured everything, even the french fry. “Thanks. That was the best meal I’ve had in days.”
“Wow, you have been busy.”
He retrieved what was left of the Moose Tracks from the freezer. “I’m too tired to go home. Do you have a spare bed where I can crash?”
She banged her shin against the dishwasher door. “Ouch! You want to stay here tonight?”
He looked up from the ice cream carton with a slightly puzzled expression, as if he didn’t understand her question. “I haven’t slept in two days. Is it a problem? I promise I’m too tired to jump you if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Of course I’m not worried.” She occupied herself pulling the trash can out from under the sink. “I suppose it’s okay. But Nana’s old bedroom faces the alley, and tomorrow’s garbage day.”
“I’ll survive.”
Seeing how tired he was, she really couldn’t understand why he hadn’t waited until tomorrow and called with the news about Keri. Unless he didn’t want to be alone tonight. Maybe his feelings for Keri went deeper than he was letting on. Some of the air leaked out of her happiness bubble.
“I’ll carry that out.” He stuck the ice cream back in the freezer and took the trash bag she’d just bundled up.
It was all too domestic. The late night, the cozy kitchen, shared chores. She in her pajamas with no bra. The mood-swing roller coaster she’d been riding for weeks took another dip.
When he returned from trash detail, he locked the door behind him and nodded toward the backyard. “That car…Let me guess. Nana’s?”
“Sherman’s more a personality than a car.”
“You actually drive that thing where people can see you?”
“Some of us can’t afford a BMW.”
He shook his head. “I guess if this matchmaking gig doesn’t work out, you could paint it yellow and stick a meter on the dashboard.”
“I’m sure you amuse yourself.”
He smiled and headed for the front of the house. “How about showing me my bedroom, Tinker Bell?”
This was too weird. She flipped off the light, determined to keep it laid-back. “If you happen to be one of those people who doesn’t like mice, pull the sheet over your head. That generally keeps them away.”
“I apologize for making fun of your car.”
“Apology accepted.”
He grabbed his suitcase and climbed the steps to the small, square upstairs hallway, which was cut up with a series of doors.
“You can take Nana’s old bedroom,” she said. “Bathroom next to it. That’s the living room. It was my mother’s bedroom when she was a kid. I sleep on the third floor.”
He set down his suitcase and went over to stand in the living room doorway. The outdated gray-and-mauve decorating scheme looked hopelessly shabby. A section of yesterday’s newspaper had fallen to the sculpted tweed carpet, and the book she’d been reading lay open on the gray sofa. A pickled oak armoire holding a television occupied the space between two rattly double-hung windows, which were topped with poofy valances in faded gray and mauve stripes. In front of the windows, a matching pair of white metal stands with curly legs held more of Nana’s African violet collection.
“This is nice,” he said. “I like your house.”
At first she thought he was kidding, but then she realized he was sincere. “I’ll trade you,” she said.
He gazed toward the open door in the hallway. “You sleep in the attic?”
“It’s where I stayed when I was a kid, and I kind of got used to it.” “Tinker Bell’s lair. This I have to see.” He headed for the narrow attic stairs.
“I thought you were so tired,” she called out.
“Making this the perfect time for me to see your bedroom. I’m harmless.”
She didn’t believe that for a moment.
The attic with its twin dormers and sloping ceilings had become the repository for all of Nana’s discarded antiques: a cherry four-poster bed, an oak bureau, a dressing table with a gilded mirror, even an old dressmaker’s mannequin from the days when Nana had kept herself busy by sewing instead of matchmaking. One dormer held a cozy armchair and ottoman, the other a small walnut desk and an ugly, but efficient, window air conditioner. Annabelle had recentl
y added blue-and-white toile curtains to the dormer windows, a matching toile bedspread, and some French prints to complement the miscellaneous landscapes that had drifted up here.
She was glad she’d tidied up earlier, although she wished she hadn’t overlooked the pink bra lying on the bed. His eyes wandered to it, then drifted to the mannequin, currently outfitted in an old lace tablecloth and a Cubs hat. “Nana?”
“She was a fan.”
“So I see.” He gazed up at the sloping ceiling. “All this needs is a couple of skylights, and it’d be perfect.”
“Maybe you should concentrate on decorating your own place.”
“I guess.”
“Honestly, Heath, if I had that gorgeous house and your money, I’d turn it into a showplace.”
“What do you mean?”
“Big furniture, stone tables, great lighting, contemporary art on the wall—huge canvases. How can you stand living in such an amazing house and not doing anything with it?”
He looked at her so strangely that she grew uncomfortable and turned away. “Nana’s bedroom has a temperamental window shade. I’ll go fix it and get you some towels.”
She hurried downstairs. The faint scent of Avon’s To a Wild Rose still clung to Nana’s room. She turned on the small china dresser lamp, put away the extra blanket she’d left at the foot of the bed, and fixed the shade. In the bathroom, she stowed the Tampax box from last week and draped a clean set of towels over the old chrome rod.
He still hadn’t come downstairs. She wondered if he’d spotted her old Tippy Tumbles doll propped on the bureau. Even worse, what about the sex toy catalog that she hadn’t gotten around to throwing away? She rushed up the stairs.
He lay on her bed, fully dressed except for his shoes, and sound asleep.
His lips were slightly parted, and his ankles, clad in plain black socks, crossed. One hand rested on his chest. The other lay at his side, next to the scrap of pink bra peeking from under his hip. It nested by his fingertips, not quite touching them, but close enough to make her queasy. Call her crazy, but she couldn’t stand seeing abandoned lingerie anywhere near him.
A floorboard squeaked as she tiptoed to the bed. Slowly, carefully, she snagged the bra strap and tugged.
It didn’t budge.
He expelled a little puff of air. This was nuts. She felt vulnerable enough as it was. She should go away and let him sleep. But she tugged again.
He rolled toward her, onto his side, trapping all but a loop of lacy strap under his hip.
She started to perspire. She knew this was insane, but she couldn’t make herself walk away. Another floorboard creaked as she knelt at the side of the bed, the same floorboard that creaked every time she stepped on it, so she should have been more careful. Her heart was pounding. She pressed down on the mattress with one hand and slipped her finger through the loop of strap sticking out from under his hip with the other. She pulled hard.
One heavy eyelid drifted open, and his sleep-rusty voice made her jump. “Either get in here with me or go away.”
“This is”—she pulled a little harder—“my bed.”
“I know. I’m resting.”
He didn’t look like he was resting. He looked like he’d settled in for the night. With her underwear. Which refused to budge. “Could I…”
“I’m dead on my feet.” His eyes drifted shut. “You can have your bed back in the morning. Promise.” His voice faded on a slur.
“Okay, but…”
“Go ’way,” he muttered.
“I will. First, though, would you mind—”
He rolled to his back again, which should have freed the bra but didn’t. Instead, it wedged between his hip and hand.
“I, uh, need one little thing. Then I won’t bother you any—”
His fingers clamped her wrist, and this time when his lids opened, his eyes were completely focused. “What do you want?”
“My bra back.”
He lifted his head and glanced to his side, still holding her wrist. “Why?”
“I’m a neat freak. Messy rooms drive me crazy.” She yanked hard and jerked it free.
Heath gazed at the bra dangling from her fingers. “Are you going somewhere tonight?”
“No, I—” She’d awakened the sleeping lion for sure, and she wadded the bra in her hands, trying to make it invisible. “Go back to sleep. I’ll take Nana’s bed.”
“I’m awake now.” He propped himself on his elbows. “Usually I can see through your latest craziness, but I have to say, this time you’ve got me stumped.”
“Just forget it.”
“One thing I do know…” He nodded toward her hand. “This isn’t about a bra.”
“That’s what you think.” She scowled at him. “Until you’ve walked a mile in my shoes, don’t judge.”
“Judge what?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I spend most of my life around football players. You’d be surprised how many weird things I understand.”
“Not this weird.”
“Try me.”
The stubborn set of his mouth told her he wasn’t going to let this go, and she had no explanation but the truth. “I can’t stand seeing…” She swallowed and licked her lips. “It’s hard for me to see…uh…female lingerie too near a man’s hand. That is…when the lingerie isn’t actually on a female body.”
He groaned and sank back into her pillows. “Oh, my God. Don’t tell me.”
“It upsets me.” Which was putting it mildly.
She knew he’d laugh, and he did, a big sound that bounced around the attic’s odd angles.
She stared him down.
He threw his feet over the side of the bed. “You’re afraid I’m going to start cross-dressing?”
Hearing it spoken aloud made her wince. How had she lived to be thirty-one years old without someone locking her up? “Not afraid exactly. But …The thing is…Why expose yourself to temptation?”
He loved that.
She understood his amusement—she’d be amused herself if she were him—but she couldn’t find a smile anywhere. Dispirited, she turned back toward the stairs. His laughter faded, and another floorboard creaked as he came up behind her. He set his hands on her shoulders. “Hey, you really are upset, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry. I spend too much time in locker rooms. I won’t tease you anymore. I promise.”
His sympathy was worse than his teasing, but she turned into his chest all the same. He stroked her hair, and she told herself to back away, but she felt as though she belonged exactly where she was. And then she grew aware of the powerful erection pressing against her body.
So did he. He quickly stepped back, abruptly releasing her. “I’d better go downstairs so you can have your bedroom back,” he said.
She managed a shaky nod. “Okay.”
He picked up his shoes, but he didn’t leave right away. Instead, he made his way to her desk and gestured toward the magazines stacked on top. “I like to read before I fall asleep. I don’t suppose you’ve got a spare copy of Sports Illustrated lying around?”
“ ’Fraid not.”
“Of course you don’t. Why would you?” His hand shot out. “I’ll take this instead?”
And there went her sex toy catalog.
Heath smiled to himself as he set off down the stairs, but his smile had faded by the time he reached Nana’s bedroom. What the hell was he doing here? He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on a chair. He hadn’t planned on showing up at Annabelle’s door, but the past week had been brutal. With the preseason about to begin, he’d flown all over the country, touching base with each of his clients. He’d played big brother, cheerleader, lawyer, and shrink. He’d endured flight delays, car rental mix-ups, bad food, loud music, too much booze, and not enough sleep. Tonight, when he’d gotten into the cab, the image of his empty house looming in front of him had been more than he could handle, and he’d heard himself givin
g the driver Annabelle’s address.
This sense that he was thrashing around threatened his mental toughness. He’d signed with Portia in May, Annabelle early in June. Now it was mid-August, but he was no closer to reaching his goal than when he’d started. As he unzipped his pants, he knew that his frustrating breakup with Keri proved one thing. He couldn’t keep going on like this, not with the football season starting, not if he wanted to stay mentally sharp. The time had come to make some changes…
Portia watched the woman’s breasts leak into the platter of raw oysters, a steady drip, drip, drip. An ice sculpture of a classical female figure might have made sense in the abstract, but tonight’s silent auction and cocktail party benefited a shelter for abused women, and watching a woman melt into the hors d’oeuvres sent the wrong message. The restaurant’s air-conditioning couldn’t handle either the ice sculpture or the crowd, and Portia was hot even in her strapless dress. She’d bought the short red cocktail number just that afternoon, hoping something new and extravagant would lift her spirits, as if a new dress could fix what was wrong with her. She’d been so optimistic about Heath and Keri, basking in the publicity they’d stirred up. She should have realized they were too much alike, but she’d lost her instincts right along with her passion for manufacturing other people’s happy endings.
She felt scattered and depressed, sick of Power Matches, sick of herself and of everything that had once given her so much pride. She moved away from the buffet table and the disappearing woman. She had to pull herself together before the meeting Heath had set up for tomorrow morning. Why had he called it? Probably not to sing her praises. Well, she refused to lose this thing. Bodie said she was obsessed. Just tell Heath to go to hell. She’d tried to explain that failure bred failure, but Bodie had grown up in a trailer park, so some things didn’t compute with him.
She’d been trying with little success not to think about Bodie. They’d become creatures of the dark. For the past month, they’d seen each other several times a week, always at her place, always at night, a couple of sex-crazed vampires. Whenever Bodie suggested they go out to dinner or to a movie, she made an excuse. She could no more explain Bodie and his tattoos to her friends than she could explain the bizarre need she sometimes felt to parade him in front of everyone. It had to end. Any day now, she’d break it off.
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