by Nora Roberts
Maddy swung her bag over her shoulders and descended the stairs to the street door with one thing on her mind—food. The energy and calories that she'd drained after a full day of exercise had to be replenished—but replenished wisely. She'd trained herself long ago to look at a dish of yogurt and a banana split with the same enthusiasm. Tonight it would be yogurt, garnished with fresh fruit and joined by a big bowl of barley soup and spinach salad.
At the door she paused a moment and listened again. The vocalist was still doing scales; piano music drifted, tinny and slight with distance. Feet slapped the floor in rhythm. The sounds were as much a part of her as her own heartbeat.
God bless Reed Valentine, she decided, and stepped out into the balmy dusk.
She'd taken about two steps when a sharp jerk on her dance bag sent her spinning around. He was hardly more than a boy, really—sixteen, seventeen—but she couldn't miss the hard, desperate look in his eye. She'd been desperate a few times herself.
"You should be in school,'' she told him as they began a tug-of-war over her bag.
She'd looked like a pushover. A hundred pounds of fluff to be tossed aside while he took the bag and fled. Her strength surprised him but made him all the more determined to have whatever cash and plastic she carried. In the dim light beside the stairs of the old building, no one noticed the struggle. She thought of screaming, then thought of how young he was and tried reason instead. It had been pointed out to her once or twice that not everyone wanted to be reformed. That never stopped her from trying.
"You know what's in here?" she asked him as they pulled and tugged on the canvas. He was running out of breath more quickly than she was. "Sweaty tights and a towel that's already molding. And my ballet shoes."
Remembering them, she held on tighter. A pro, she knew, would have given up and looked for an easier mark. The boy was beginning to call her all sorts of names, but she ignored them, believing that he was entitled. "They're almost new, but they won't do you any good," she continued in the same rational tone. "I need them a lot more than you do." As they scuffled, she banged her heel against the iron railing and swore. She could afford to lose a few dollars, but she couldn't afford an injury. So he didn't want to be reformed, but maybe he'd compromise.
"Look, if you'll let go a minute I'll give you half of the cash I have. I don't want to have to bother changing my credit cards—which I'll do by calling that 800 number the minute you take off. I don't have time to replace the shoes, and I need them tomorrow. All the cash," she decided as she heard the seam in her bag begin to give. "I think I have about thirty dollars."
He gave a fierce rug that sent Maddy stumbling forward. Then, at the sound of a shout, he released his hold. The bag dropped like a stone, its contents tumbling out. The boy, not wasting time on a curse, ran like a rocket down the street and around the first corner. Muttering to herself, Maddy crouched down to gather up her belongings.
"Are you all right?"
She reached for her tattered leg warmer and saw a pair of highly polished Italian shoes. As a dancer, she took a special notice of what people wore on their feet. Shoes often reflected one's personality and self-esteem. Polished Italian shoes meant wealth and appreciation for what wealth could provide to Maddy. Above the exquisite leather were pale gray trousers that fell precisely to the middle of the foot, their creases perfectly aligned. An organized, sensible man, she decided as she gathered the loose change that had spilled from the bottom of her bag.
Looking higher, she saw that the trousers fit well over narrow hips and were buckled by a thin belt with a small, intricately worked gold buckle. Stylish, but not trendy.
The jacket was open, revealing a trim waist, a long torso smoothed by a light blue shirt and a darker tie. All silk. Maddy approved highly of silk worn against the body. Luxuries were only luxuries if they were enjoyed.
She looked at the hand that reached down to help her up. It was tanned, with long, attractive fingers. On his wrist was a gold watch that looked both expensive and practical. She put her hand in his and felt heat and strength and, she thought, impatience.
"Thank you." She said it before she looked at his face. From her long visual journey up his body, she knew he was tall and lean. Rangy, not in the way of a dancer but in the way of a man who knew discipline without the extremes of sacrifice. In the same interested way she'd studied him from shoes to shoulders, she studied his face.
He was clean-shaven, and every line and plane showed clearly. His cheeks were slightly hollow, giving his otherwise hard and stern look a poetic hint. She'd always had a soft spot for poets. His mouth was in a firm line now, signalling disapproval or annoyance, while below it was a trace, just a touch, of a cleft in his chin. His nose was straight, aristocratic, and though he looked down it at her, she took no offense. The eyes were a dark, flinty gray, and they conveyed as clearly as words the message that he didn't care to waste time rescuing damsels in distress.
The fact that he didn't, and yet had, made Maddy warm toward him.
He brushed his fingers through his burnished blond hair and stared back at her and wondered if she was going into shock. "Sit down," he told her in the quick, clipped voice of a man accustomed to giving orders and having them obeyed. Immediately.
"I'm okay," she said, sending him an easy smile. He noticed for the first time that her face wasn't flushed or pale, that her eyes weren't mirroring fear. She didn't fit his picture of a woman who'd nearly been mugged. "I'm glad you came along when you did. That kid wasn't listening to reason."
She bent down again to gather her things. He told himself he should go and leave her to pick up her own scattered belongings, but instead he took a deep breath, checked his watch, then crouched down to help her. "Do you always try to reason with muggers?"
"Apprentice mugger would be my guess." She found her key ring where it had bounced into a deep crack in the sidewalk. "And I was trying to negotiate."
He held up Maddy's oldest practice tights, gingerly, by the backs of the knees. "Do you really think this was worth negotiating over?"
"Absolutely." She took them from him, rolled them up and stuffed them in her bag.
"He could have hurt you."
"He could have gotten my shoes." Maddy picked up her ballet slippers and stroked the supple leather. "A fat lot of good they'd have done him, and I only bought them three weeks ago. Hand me that sweat-band, would you?"
He retrieved it, then grimaced. Dangling it by his fingertips, he handed it over. "Shower with this, do you?"
Laughing, she took it and dropped it in with the rest of her practice clothes. "No, it's just sweat. Sorry." But there was no apology in her eyes, only humor.
"Dressed like that, you don't look as though you'd recognize the substance."
"I don't generally carry it around in a bag with me." He wondered why he didn't simply move by her and start on his way. He was already five minutes late, but something about the way she continued to look up at him with such frank good humor kept him there. "You don't react like a woman who very nearly lost a pair of tights, a faded leotard, a ratty towel, two pairs of shoes and five pounds of keys."
"The towel's not that ratty." Satisfied she'd found everything, Maddy dosed her beg again. "And anyway, I didn't lose them."
"Most of the women I know wouldn't negotiate with a mugger."
Interested, she studied him again. He looked like a man who would know dozens of women, all elegant and intelligent. "What would they do?"
"Scream, I imagine."
"If I'd done that, he'd have my bag and I'd be out of breath." She dismissed the idea with a graceful shrug of strong shoulders. "Anyway, thanks." She offered her hand again, a delicate one, narrow and naked of jewelry. "I think white knights are lovely."
She was small and completely alone, and it was getting darker by the minute. His natural instinct for noninvolvement warred with his conscience. The resolution took the form of annoyance. "You shouldn't be walking around in this neighborhood after dark."
She laughed again, the sound bright, rich and amused. "This is my neighborhood. I only live about four blocks away. I told you the kid was green. No self-respecting mugger's going to look twice at a dancer.
They know dancers are usually broke. But you—" She stepped back and took another long look. He was definitely worth taking the time to look twice. "You're another matter. Dressed like that, you'd be better off carrying your watch and your wallet in your shorts."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Deciding one good turn deserved another, Maddy merely nodded. "Can I give you directions? You don't look as though you know your way around the lower forties."
Why had he been the one feeling responsible for her? In another minute that kid might have planted a fist in her face, but she didn't appear to have considered that. "No, thanks. I'm just going inside here."
"Here?" Maddy glanced over her shoulder at the ramshackle building that housed the rehearsal hall, then looked at him speculatively. "You're not a dancer." She said that positively. It wasn't that he didn't move well—from the little she had seen, he'd looked good. He simply wasn't a dancer. "And not an actor," she decided after only a brief mental debate. "And I'd swear… you aren't a musician, even though you've got good hands."
Every time he tried to walk away from her she drew him back. "Why not?"
"Too conservative," Maddy told him immediately, but not with scorn. "Absolutely too straight. I mean you're dressed like a lawyer or a banker or—" It struck her, clear as a bell. She positively beamed at him. "An angel."
He lifted a brow. "You see a halo?"
"No, I don't think you'd be willing to carry that kind of weight around. An angel," she repeated. "A backer. Valentine Records?"
Yet again, Maddy offered her hand. He took it and found himself simply holding it. "That's right. Reed Valentine."
"I'm Merry Widow."
He frowned. "I beg your pardon?"
"The stripper," she said, and watched his eyes narrow. She might have left it at that, just for the possible shock value, but then he had helped her out. "From Take It Off. The play you're backing." Delighted with him, she covered his hand with her free one. "Maddy O'Hurley."
This was Maddy O'Hurley? This compact little urchin with the crop of disheveled red-blond hair and the scrubbed face was the same powerhouse he'd watched in Suzanna's Park? She'd worn a long blond wig for that, an Alice in Wonderland look, and period costumes of the 1890s, but still… Her voice had boomed out, filling every crack in the theater. She'd danced with a frenzied, feverish energy that had awed a man who was very difficult to impress.
One of the reasons he'd been willing to back the play was Maddy O'Hurley. Now he was face-to-face with her and swamped with doubts.
"Madeline O'Hurley?"
"That's what it says on the contract."
"I've seen you perform, Miss O'Hurley. I didn't recognize you."
"Lights, costume, makeup." She shrugged it off. When there weren't footlights, she prized her anonymity and acknowledged her own unremarkable looks. She'd been born one of three—Chantel had gotten the heart-stopping beauty, Abby the warm loveliness, and she'd gotten cute. Maddy figured there were reasons for it, but she couldn't help being amused by Reed's cautious look. "Now you're disappointed," she concluded with a secret smile.
"I never said—"
"Of course, you wouldn't. You're much too polite. Don't worry, Mr. Valentine Records, I'll deliver. Any O'Hurley's a wise investment." She laughed at her own private joke. The streetlight behind them flickered on, signaling that night was coming, like it or not. "I guess you've got meetings inside."
"Ten minutes ago."
"Time's only important when you're on cue. You've got the checkbook, captain, you're in charge." Before she stepped out of his way, she gave him a friendly pat on the arm. "Listen, if you're around in a couple of days, come by rehearsals." She took a few steps, turned and walked backward, grinning at him. "You can watch me bump and grind. I'm good, Valentine. Real good." With a pirouette, she turned away, eating up the sidewalk with an easy jog.
In spite of a penchant for promptness, Reed continued to watch her until she disappeared around the corner. He shook his head and started up the stairs. Then he noticed a small round hairbrush. The temptation to leave it where it lay was strong. Curiosity was stronger. When Reed scooped it up he noticed that it carried the faintest scent of shampoo—something lemon-scented and fresh. He resisted the urge to sniff at it, and stuck it in his jacket pocket. Would a woman like that miss a hair brush? he wondered, then shrugged the thought away. He'd see that she got it back in any case.
He was bound to see Maddy O'Hurley again anyway, he told himself. It wouldn't hurt to do one more good deed.
Chapter Two
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Nearly a week passed before Reed managed to schedule another visit to the rehearsal hall. He was able to justify the trip to himself as good business sense, but just barely. It had never been his intention to become directly involved with the play itself. Meetings with the producer and sessions with the accountants would have been enough to keep him informed. Reed understood balance sheets, ledgers and neatly formed columns better than he did the noises and the scents inside the decaying old building. But it never hurt to keep a tight rein on an investment—even if the investment involved an odd woman with a vivid smile.
He felt out of place. He was a twenty-minute cab ride from his offices, yet just as out of place in the rehearsal hall in his three-piece suit as he would have been on some remote island in the South Seas where the natives wore bones in their ears.
He would never have considered his life sheltered. In the course of his career he'd visited some seamy areas, dealt with people from varied backgrounds. But he lived uptown, where the restaurants were sedate and the view of the park out his apartment window was restful.
As he started up the stairs, Reed told himself it was natural curiosity that had brought him back. That, coupled with the simple matter of protecting his interests. Valentine Records had sunk a good chunk of capital into Take It Off, and he was responsible for Valentine Records. Still, he reached into his pocket and toyed with Maddy's hair brush. Going against his natural inclinations, he headed toward the sounds of music and talk.
In a room wrapped with mirrors, he found the dancers. They weren't the glittery, spangly chorus one paid to see on a Broadway stage, but a ragtag, dripping group of men and women in frayed tights. To him they were a helter-skelter mix of faded, damp leotards without any hint of the precision or uniformity expected of professionals. He felt uneasy for a moment as they stood, most of them with their hands on their hips, and stared at the small, thin man he knew was the choreographer.
"Let's have a little more steam, boys and girls," Macke instructed. "This is a strip joint, not a cotillion. We've got to sell sex and keep it good-natured. Wanda, I want a hesitation on the hip roll, then make it broader. Maddy, raise some blood pressure when you step up in the shimmy. Bend it from the waist."
He demonstrated, and Maddy watched, considered the move, then grinned at him. "I saw the design for my costume, Macke. If I bend over like that, the boys in the front row are going to get an anatomy lesson."
Macke looked her over. "A small one, in your case."
The dancers around her snorted and cackled. Maddy took the ribbing with a good-humored laugh as they moved back into position to take the count. They moved, with gusto, on eight.
Reed watched with steadily growing astonishment. Over a floor shiny with sweat, the dancers sprang to life. Legs flashed, hips rolled. Men and women found their partners in what seemed to be a riot of churning bodies. There were lifts, jumps, spins and the soft stamp of feet. From his vantage point he could see the exertion, the drip of perspiration, the deep, controlled breathing. Then Maddy stepped out, and he forgot the rest.
The leotard clung to every curve and line of her body, with the dark patches only accentuating her shape. Her legs, even in ba
ttered tights, seemed to go all the way to her waist. Slowly at first, with her hands at the tops of her hips, she moved forward, then right, then left, always following the rotation of her hips. He didn't hear the count being called now, but she did.
Her arm snaked across her body, then flew out. It didn't take much imagination to understand that she had tossed aside some article of clothing. She kicked up, so that for a moment her foot was over her head. Slowly, erotically, she ran her fingertips down her thigh as she lowered her leg.
The pace picked up, and so did her rhythm. She moved like a leopard, twisting, turning, sinuous and smooth. Then, as the dancers behind her went into an orgy of movement, she bent from the waist and used her shoulders to fascinate. A man broke from the group and grabbed her arm. With nothing more than the angle of her body, the placement of her head, she conveyed teasing, taunting acceptance. When the music ended, she was caught against him, arched backward. And his hand was clamped firmly on her bottom
"Better," Macke decided. The dancers sagged, unwilling to waste energy by standing upright. Maddy and her partner seemed to collapse onto each other.
"Watch your hand, Jack."
"I am." He leaned over her shoulder just a little. "I've got my eye right on it."
She managed a breathless laugh before she pushed him away. For the first time, she saw Reed standing in the doorway. He looked every inch the proper, successful businessman. Because she'd wanted to see him again, had known she eventually would, Maddy sent him an uncomplicated, friendly smile.
"Take lunch," Macke announced as he lit a cigarette. "I want Maddy, Wanda and Terry back in an hour. Someone give Carter the word I want him, too. Chorus is due in room B at 1:30 for vocals."
The room was already emptying. Maddy took her towel and buried her face in it before she walked over to Reed. Several of the female dancers passed him with none-too-subtle invitations in their eyes.
"Hello again." Maddy slung her towel around her neck, then gently eased him out of the way of the hungry dancers. "Did you see the whole thing?"
"Whole thing?"
"The dance."
"Yes." He was having a hard time remembering anything but the way she had moved, the sensuality that had poured out of her.
With a laugh, she hung on to the ends of the towel and leaned against the wall. "And?"
"Impressive." Now she looked simply like a woman who'd been hard at work—attractive enough, but hardly primitively arousing. "You've, ah… a lot of energy, Miss O'Hurley."
"Oh, I'm packed with it. Are you here for another meeting?"
"No." Feeling a little foolish, he pulled out her hairbrush. "I think this is yours."
"Well, yeah." Pleased, Maddy took it from him. "I gave it up for lost. That was nice of you." She dabbed at her face with the towel again. "Hang on a minute." She walked away to stuff the brush and towel in her bag. Reed allowed himself the not-so-mild pleasure of watching her leotard stretch over her bottom as she bent over. She came back, slinging the bag over her shoulder.
"How about some lunch?" she asked him.
It was so casual, and so ridiculously appealing, that he nearly agreed. "I've got an appointment."
"Dinner?"
His brow lifted. She was looking up at him, a half smile on her lips and laughter in her eyes. The women he knew would have coolly left it to him to make the approach and the maneuvers. "Are you asking me for a date?"
The question rang with cautious politeness, and she had to laugh again. "You catch on fast, Valentine Records. Are you a carnivore?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Do you eat meat?" she explained. "I know a lot of people who won't touch it."
"Ah… yes." He wondered why he should feel apologetic.
"Fine. I'll fix you a steak. Got a pen?"
Not certain whether he was amused or just dazed, Reed drew one out of his breast pocket.
"I knew you would." Maddy rattled off her address. "See you at seven." She called for someone down the hall to wait for her and dashed off before he could agree or refuse.
Reed walked out of the building without writing down her address. But he didn't forget it.
Maddy always did things on impulse. That was how she justified asking Reed to dinner when she barely knew him and didn't have anything in the house more interesting than banana yogurt. He was interesting, she told herself. So she stopped on the way home, after a full ten hours on her feet, and did some frenzied marketing.
It wasn't often she cooked. Not that she couldn't when push came to shove, it was simply that it was easier to eat out of a carton or can. If it didn't have to do with the theater, Maddy always looked for the easiest way.
When she reached her apartment building, the Gianellis were arguing in their first-floor apartment. Italian expletives streamed up the stairwell. Maddy remembered her mail, jogged back down half a flight and searched her key ring for the tiny, tarnished key that opened the scarred slot: With a postcard from her parents, an offer for life insurance and two bills in hand, she jogged back up again.
On the second landing the newlywed from 242 sat reading a textbook.
"How's the English Lit?" Maddy asked her.
"Pretty good. I think I'll have my certificate by August."
"Terrific." But she looked lonely, Maddy thought, and she paused a moment. "How's Tony?"