by Kay Hooper
“Sorry about that.” He didn’t sound it.
“I’ll bet. You’re a menace, Maestro, an absolute menace.”
“I aim to please,” he disclaimed modestly.
“Can’t you be serious just for a minute?”
“Oh, but I am.” He smiled slowly. “I’ve been serious all along, pixie. You just haven’t realized it yet.”
For no reason she could understand, C.J. felt a curious tension steal through her body. She clutched the ruined flowers to her breast and stared at him warily, at a loss to understand or interpret the expression in his eyes. Waiting? No, not exactly. Anxious? No—ridiculous. Why was he looking at her like that?
Fate reached out suddenly and ran a finger lightly down her cheek. “Not ready yet, huh?”
“Ready for what?” she asked uneasily, unconsciously crushing the flowers a bit more.
He grinned, laughter gleaming in the dark eyes. “You are a constant delight to me, do you know that? I can always count on you to take the wind out of my sails.” He laughed at some private joke, then leaned over and kissed her swiftly. “See you later.”
Perplexed, C.J. stared after him until he had disappeared from her sight. “If I live to be a hundred,” she told the empty lobby vaguely, “I will never figure that man out.” Shaking her head in bemusement, she went to replace the crushed flowers.
Fate ran her down in one of the lounges later that afternoon. She was sitting before the fire and resting her feet, which were aching from running errands all afternoon.
“There you are.” He thrust a heavy mug into her hands and sat down beside her on the couch, throwing a careless arm over the back of the couch behind her. “I’ve been looking everywhere.”
C.J. peered into the dark brown liquid that filled her mug and the identical mug in his hand. “What’s this?”
“Cocoa. The gift shop’s closed, and this was the only kind of chocolate I could find.”
“Thank you,” she said, hiding a smile as she sipped the drink and remembered Jan’s earlier advice to him. After a moment, she went on meditatively, “Do you know that there’s a chemical in cocoa which is also a chemical that is released by the brain when one falls in love? I suppose that’s why chocolates have always been considered a meaningful courtship gift.”
His eyes lit with amusement. “Are you suggesting—?”
“Well, why not? It’d explain—at least in part—the divorce rate. Candy consumed, chemical vanishes…and suddenly love isn’t quite as strong as one thought it was.”
“That’s a cynical thought.”
“Isn’t it?”
“Don’t you believe in love?”
“Oh, sure.” She stared fixedly into her cocoa. “But I think it’s a very misused word. People say love when they really mean any number of other things.”
“And can you define real love?” he challenged smoothly.
C.J. lifted her eyes to stare into the fire, and seriously considered his question. “Real love…is sharing,” she said finally. “Sharing dreams, and laughter, and things that are important to you. Sharing bad times as well as good ones. It’s…a closeness. A feeling that the one you love…sees you in a way no one else does. Knows you better than you know yourself…” Her voice trailed away.
The hand behind her dropped to grasp her shoulder as Fate gave her a sudden, almost fierce hug. “That’s exactly what I think it is,” he told her huskily.
C.J. looked at him in surprise, having almost forgotten that he was there. And she had the odd sensation of seeing him for the first time. Gazing beyond the facade of his role, past the layer of the intelligent attorney, beneath the charming, little-boy mischief. And what she saw kept her completely motionless as he set his mug on the coffee table and then gently took hers away from her.
A very calm little voice inside her head warned that she should make some movement or utter words to break the sudden, almost painful tension between them. The voice went unheeded.
Fate slid one arm beneath her knees, the other around her back as he lifted her easily into his lap. He took no notice of her soft gasp, holding her eyes with his own. When she was half lying across his lap, her arms moving instinctively to encircle his neck, he whispered roughly, “I won’t call it love, because you wouldn’t believe me, but I want you, pixie.”
C.J. felt herself getting lost somewhere in the purple depths of his eyes, until his lips touched hers, her long lashes fluttered down, and another, deeper, sigh escaped her.
There was no gentle plea in this kiss, no appeal for a response. His lips plundered her own with a demand which stopped just short of violence. He was taking as though he had a right to.
She granted him the right that he took. Shaken by the wild need surging through her body, there was nothing else she could do. It no longer seemed to matter that his motives were unclear or that she didn’t understand him. She accepted his words at face value. He wanted her.
And she silently acknowledged for the first time that she wanted him as well. Desire and need ate at her, filling her body with an empty ache only he could assuage.
The admission made, C.J. no longer made any effort to hold back or deny her response to him. Her fingers twined among the soft strands of his dark hair, her body twisted in an effort to be closer to him. She felt her breasts crushed against his muscled chest and, even through the bulky barriers of two sweaters, was aware of her nipples hardening in aching response.
Rough hands slipped beneath her sweater to touch the smooth skin of her back, drawing her closer, trailing fire wherever they paused. His lips slanted across hers with driving hunger, seducing her, teaching her to respond only to his touch.
And respond she did, her mouth clinging to his, her tongue joining his in a passionate, desperate duel as old as the stars. For her, the world vanished. There was only this flaming desire, this hurting need to be closer to him than she could possibly be, to become a part of him.
“Lord, you’re so sweet,” he muttered hoarsely when his mouth left hers at last to burn the sensitive flesh of her throat. “So warm and sweet, darling…”
C.J. only dimly heard his words, her head tilted back to allow his exploring lips to ravage where they would. She was floating somewhere magical, bewitched and enchanted.
The fall back to earth, when it came, was abrupt and complete. And C.J. didn’t know whether to scream in frustration or to laugh in hysterical relief.
“Hey, lovebirds—we’re going to get ready for dinner. Are you interested? Or should I bite my tongue?”
It was Jan, standing with the other girls in the doorway to the lounge, and smiling wickedly at the couple alone in the room. Several giggles and one “Whew!” followed her words.
C.J. stared into glazed purple eyes for a timeless moment, and then scrambled hurriedly from Fate’s lap. Too stunned by her own response to be embarrassed, she smoothed her sweater into place and murmured, “Dinner. Of course.”
In just the same way she would have said—“Thank goodness, saved by the bell.”
FIVE
THE TALK AROUND their table later that evening was casual, centered mainly around the following night’s party, which the management at the lodge had decided to throw. It was their contribution to the festive mood that had gripped the guests all day, a warm-up—so to speak—for Saturday’s wedding. Semiformal, it had been decided, with everyone doing the best they could in the way of clothing.
C.J.’s friends being what they were, there was no lack of formal dress within the group. In addition to their bridesmaid dresses, each had brought along dressy things “just in case.” Like Boy Scouts, they believed in being prepared.
Except, of course, for C.J. Even Fate admitted that he’d brought a dinner jacket along.
Listening to the others talking, C.J. kept her eyes lowered to her plate. She wasn’t thinking about what had happened in the lounge earlier; thinking about that, she had discovered, was somewhat like considering a dip in a pool filled with hungry sharks. Scar
y.
She was waiting for her friends to start in on her. They knew very well that she hadn’t brought along anything except her bridesmaid dress. However, for quite some time nothing was said about her lack of preparedness. The girls were excited because their husbands were arriving the next day, and were busy giving Fate thumbnail sketches of each man.
Actually, it wasn’t until several hours later when they were all sitting around the fire in one of the lounges that the attack commenced. C.J. was trying to ignore the fact that Fate, close beside her, was holding her hand and playing with her fingers, so she was caught off guard when the subject finally came up.
“Oh, no,” Kathy groaned suddenly. “What are we going to do about C.J.?”
Fate looked surprised, but five pairs of eyes turned to C.J. with varying degrees of exasperation. She blinked at them, and wondered absently if Fate had noticed that her hands were cold.
“Trade her in for a new model,” Jan suggested wryly.
Kathy sighed. “I have a dress she can wear,” she volunteered. “It’ll be a little tight across the bust—damnit—but I doubt that anyone’ll mind.”
“I certainly won’t mind,” Fate inserted cheerfully.
“You wouldn’t.” Tami laughed.
“Ann, did you bring your curlers? We can roll her hair in the morning—”
“Her hands are hopeless. She will keep her nails short in spite of everything I tell her—”
“Shoes! Kathy, your feet are nearly as small as hers. Did you bring that pair of black pumps along—?”
“At least her ears are pierced. I have those pearl studs that my grandmother gave me—”
“I bet the holes have closed up; I haven’t seen her wear earrings since my wedding, and that was September—”
“I have a silk shawl she can borrow.”
C.J. listened mutely to these plans for her transformation. But now, unlike all the times in the past, she got mad. She wasn’t sure exactly why, and didn’t stop to question it. She just knew that she was fed up with being dictated to as though she were a child.
She said nothing, however, very much aware of Fate at her side. He was throwing in a comment now and then, teasing C.J. right along with the rest of them. He seemed to think the whole thing highly amusing, and played it for all it was worth.
At the end of half an hour, C.J.’s mad was simmering and she was beginning to feel sorry for herself. Fate might at least defend her, she thought miserably. He was supposed to be in love with her, for Pete’s sake. He was as bad as the rest of them.
She neither agreed nor disagreed with the plans flying round her head, but merely listened with outward meekness. When her friends had finally wound down, she pried her fingers from Fate’s and quietly excused herself, pleading tiredness. Fate followed her from the room.
It wasn’t until they had nearly reached C.J.’s door that he spoke. “Did it bother you—what your friends were saying?”
“Why should it bother me? They’ve been saying the same things for years.” She got her key out and unlocked the door, refusing to look at him until he grasped her arm and turned her to face him.
“That’s no answer.” He stood looking down at her for a long moment, then grinned suddenly. “Tell you what. I’ll take you into Aspen tomorrow, and we’ll find something really special. Something to startle the hell out of all of them.”
She lifted an eyebrow questioningly. “Something—?”
“Something”—he made a curiously graphic gesture with both hands—“slinky.”
C.J.’s mad hit boiling point about then, but the lid didn’t blow. Not then. “Slinky,” she repeated, not sure exactly why she was so utterly furious. “Slinky.”
“Sexy,” he elaborated—not that he needed to. “I’ll bet you’re a real knockout when you’re all dressed up. What do you say? Will you go into Aspen with me?”
“I’ll think about it.” She nipped into her room quickly, before he could bestow the usual soul-destroying kiss. “Goodnight.” She barely waited for his “Goodnight, pixie” before shutting the door.
Automatically fastening the night chain, C.J. went to get ready for bed. She undressed and then donned the football jersey, washed her face, brushed her teeth, climbed into bed, turned out the light—all without uttering a sound. Then she lay in the wide bed and stared into the darkness.
“Slinky,” she muttered. And then, a little louder, “Slinky!” And finally, in a voice that hit about seven on the Richter scale, “Slinky!”
C.J. crept out of the lodge at the crack of dawn the next morning, after leaving a vague message for anyone who asked at the desk. She had both her charge cards and her checkbook, and roughly four hours of sleep had done absolutely nothing to diminish her anger.
The cab deposited her in the heart of Aspen. She found a restaurant serving breakfast and ordered more than usual because she had a feeling she was going to need the energy. Then she asked for a phone and a directory. Receiving both, she let her fingers do the walking for a while, then made several local calls and one long-distance one to her banker in Boston. She got him out of bed, but since her business account was one of the largest in the bank, he didn’t protest after he realized who was calling.
The conversation was short on C.J.’s part, confined to a single request which her banker readily agreed to without surprise or undue curiosity. Since his business dealings with Miss Adams had shown her to be a levelheaded, shrewd woman, he neither treated her like a child nor demanded to know what she was up to. And he would be quite happy to call the bank in Aspen and okay a substantial withdrawal.
That done, C.J. sat for a moment and chewed on her thumb thoughtfully. Jewelry. She had little jewelry at home, but that in no way implied ignorance of the subject. In fact, she was very nearly an expert in the fine art of judging fine jewelry; her Uncle John had been a connoisseur, and had taught her all he knew. So she needed no advice with that.
Her breakfast arrived, and C.J. absently began eating.
The salon would be ready for her at three this afternoon. As soon as the bank opened, she’d trot over there. Then the boutiques.
And so she planned, with feminine instincts older than man…
Various shopkeepers, quite a few onlookers, and one cab driver were treated to a very interesting day. The petite redhead dived into and out of stores with bewildering energy, pointing out what she wanted without hesitation and not arguing over prices. Boxes piled up in the back of the cab. and the driver, glancing at his ticking meter, had no doubt that the lady could afford him.
Not for nothing had C.J. watched her friends for twenty years! She was a little startled at the amount that had sunk in over this time, unaware that her feminine instincts were finally coming to the fore. She knew only that she was very weary of being the butt of her friends’ jokes.
Several people were startled and puzzled by the remarks left floating in the air as they passed a redhead with glittering yellow eyes.
“Slinky!…I’ll show them…Think I’m so stupid I don’t even know how to wear panty hose, for heaven’s sake…And him the arrogant, cocksure…I’ll startle the hell out of them, all right…. Slinky!…”
After a brief halt for lunch, C.J. finally found what she’d been searching for all day. She immediately went into the small, expensive boutique after seeing the dress in the window. Moments later, she was standing in front of a full-length mirror and staring with surprise at her reflection.
“Wicked!” the saleslady exclaimed under her breath. “Miss Adams, I’ve never seen anything so…That dress was made for you.” And her comments were not entirely due to the huge commission she stood to make.
C.J. stared into the mirror for a long time, turning slowly this way and that. Uneasy for the first time, she murmured. “I won’t be able to wear anything under it.”
“You don’t need to,” the saleslady said enviously. “But if it bothers you—being so revealing, I mean—there’s a lace jacket that would go perfectly—”
>
“Oh, no,” C.J. interrupted decisively. “I want it revealing. I want it so revealing that I just…might…get arrested.”
“You just might,” the older woman murmured. “In fact—you’d cause a pile-up at any intersection in the world.”
C.J. turned to her with an unconsciously feline smile. “I’ll take it.”
Hours later she sat back on her bed and stared at the boxes piled all around her. She had managed to creep into the lodge unseen by either Fate or her friends—even though it had taken two bellmen to carry the packages.
She opened one of the jeweler’s boxes and thoughtfully exchanged her broad, masculine watch for the delicate one in the box. Perfect. It even made her hands look smaller and more…feminine. And the manicure had helped there. So would the diamond cluster she had unexpectedly fallen in love with.
Thoughtfully, C.J. began to unpack the boxes and put things away. She was more than a little astonished to realize that she’d spent more money on herself today than she had in years. And it slowly came to her that it hadn’t been because of temper alone.
So the butterfly had truly emerged. And this time it wasn’t a stranger’s face in the mirror. This time it was her.
There were some things, she was ruefully aware, which would never change. She’d always lose herself in history. And she’d always be more apt to wear jeans than a dress. But she would no longer view the world through a gauzy curtain of abstraction, uninterested in joining the parade. Observing the parade had been interesting…but marching along with it was fascinating.
Intuitively she understood that marching along with the parade would give her more than blisters on her heels. Already she was feeling the emotional uncertainty of her first relationship with a man…be it a farcical relationship, and be he an actor on a stage of her making.
That damned lawyer/actor/Indian had somehow managed to worm his way under her skin.
C.J. accepted this as fact, but she made no attempt to pursue the matter any further. Things like that generally left one feeling like a dog after a fruitless hour of chasing its tail. Nothing very much was accomplished…and one got so tired.