by Joan Hohl
Even dressed in a terry-cloth robe, her hair mussed from sleep, and her face free of makeup, Karla managed to execute an elegant shrug. “Of course.”
Andrea turned to grimace at Alycia. “Couldn’t you just bop her one at times?”
Affecting a superior expression, Alycia did a fair imitation of the younger woman. “Of course.”
Karla expelled a sigh of long suffering. “It’s as obvious as that bun Andrea’s stuffing into her mouth,” she said, reaching for one of the lavishly iced pastries. “You were immature and inexperienced. Was Doug a good lover?” she asked Alycia bluntly.
Alycia felt a flush spread from her throat to her hairline. “I suppose so,” she muttered, lowering her eyes.
“Oh, come on, Alycia!” Impatience threaded Karla’s tone. “What kind of answer is that?”
“An honest one!” Alycia retorted. “I have no basis of comparison, dammit! Doug was the only lover I’ve ever had.”
Andrea stopped chewing.
Karla looked interested. “Really?”
Alycia raised her chin defiantly. “Yes.”
“I’ve only ever had one lover, too,” Karla admitted.
Andrea’s eyes widened and she gulped the partially chewed roll before blurting out, “So have I!”
Looks of amazement were exchanged and then the three women burst out laughing.
“This is incredible!” Karla gasped. “We’ve been sharing this apartment for four years!”
“And after all the late-night soul-baring sessions we’ve had!” Andrea interjected, swiping at the laughter-induced tears rolling down her face.
“And not once did any one of us as much as hint at the fact that we’ve had only one lover,” Alycia concluded. “As if that’s something to be ashamed of!”
“There you have it, Alycia,” Karla said suddenly.
Alycia looked pained. “There I have what?”
“The reason you responded so quickly to Sean!” Karla exploded. “You said your body felt starved,” she went on after drawing a calming breath. “Well, it probably was. It’s been a long time between... since you’ve made love.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “Well, it’s been a long time. And you were young, inexperienced, and immature. And, as Doug was only a few years older than you, I’d hazard a guess he wasn’t all that experienced, either.” Her expression grew wry. “While I’d be willing to bet that Sean is an expert and practiced lover.” She gave a sharp, conclusive nod of her head. “With the right conditions, who wouldn’t respond?”
“You.” Alycia and Andrea answered in unison. Then both women stared as an uncharacteristic expression of uncertainty flickered over Karla’s face
“I’d like to believe that.” Her shoulders moved in an uptight shrug. “But I simply don’t know”—her tone hardened—”even though I sure as hell don’t want that sort of involvement with a man.”
“If memory serves,” Andrea said pensively, “the one absolute to emerge during those all-night soul-baring sessions was that not one of us wanted that kind of involvement with a man ever again.”
Memory obviously served very well.
Karla repeated her single, sharp nod.
“Right” Though Alycia’s voice held firm, her eyes were suddenly shadowed.
“What are you going to do, Alycia?” Andrea’s tone was soft with compassion. “Are you going to keep seeing him?”
Alycia had a strange, quivery feeling inside. “I... don’t know,” she admitted starkly.
“I can only speak for myself” Karla murmured. “But if I were in your shoes, I’d start them running as fast and as far away from Sean Halloran as the feet inside them would carry me.”
* * * *
Should she run fast and far from Sean Halloran? The question haunted Alycia throughout that long, quiet afternoon.
She was alone in the apartment. Karla and Andrea had gone out, and in different directions, shortly after their discussion ended, as if feeling a need for a separation or breathing spell after the shared closeness around the table. Alycia had decided to stay indoors, ostensibly to study. Yet, midway into the afternoon, her textbook lay open but unread on her lap as she sat staring into middle distance, her mind worrying the question of Sean Halloran.
Merely thinking his name induced a shivering response in Alycia, a response and memories she had no desire to recall. But, made vulnerable by the incident with Sean, she found that the past insisted on intruding on the present. Closing the textbook with a snap, Alycia deserted the Battle of Brandywine and surrendered to the attack being waged by her own memories.
How incredibly young and naive she’d been at eighteen, and how very eager to love and be loved. Always the serious, studious bookworm, she had taken little interest in boys until she was in her senior year of high school. Alycia smiled in sad remembrance of the pleasurable shock of awareness she’d experienced when Douglas Matlock, the local college football hero, suddenly swept her off her feet.
Now, with the perfect hindsight yielded by the passing of nine years, Alycia realized that the results of Doug’s courting had been virtually predictable. Within one week, Alycia had believed herself in love with her hero; within one month she became the hero’s bride.
But being a bride to a football hero and being a wife of a not-quite-mature twenty-one-year-old man were two vastly different roles, as Alycia painfully discovered.
Being a bride was exciting, with the fun of showers given by her giggling girlfriends and the thrill of being escorted down the aisle on her father’s arm. But becoming a wife ... Alycia shuddered at the razor-sharp memory of being initiated none too gently by an inept husband who had imbibed much too freely at their wedding reception.
The outrage to Alycia’s young body was just the first in a series of disillusioning shocks that continued throughout her stormy two-year marriage. If the dawning of reality began on her honeymoon, its morning commenced with the necessity of coexisting with a posturing football hero in a tiny apartment, paid for by his disapproving but indulgent parents. The afternoon of her reality arrived with an unplanned pregnancy, which delighted Alycia but dismayed Doug, who stated flatly that he didn’t want the responsibility of fatherhood and couldn’t afford to be without the excellent salary she earned as an executive assistant. But for Alycia, still clinging to the illusion of love and the shredding remnants of her disintegrating marriage, reality became a cold and hard fact of life; she miscarried her baby in the ninth week of her pregnancy, to the obvious and unconcealed relief of her husband.
Alycia firmly believed that the process of becoming a rational adult began for her while she lay shattered in that hospital bed listening to her husband tell her that the agony of losing her child was really all for the best. When Alycia walked out of the hospital, she walked out of Douglas Matlock’s life, too.
Alternately blaming herself and then Doug for the failure of their marriage, Alycia eventually resolved the issue in her own mind by placing the blame where it belonged, on their youth and immaturity. If Doug had behaved in an immature, childish manner at times, and he had, so had she. Facing up to her own shortcomings was part and parcel of becoming a woman. It was difficult—and painful—to look at herself objectively, but Alycia forced herself to do it. Only later did she realize that learning to accept herself for the person she was had probably been the hardest and smartest thing she had ever done.
Once her conscience was clear, she set about putting her life back together. She set goals, the primary one being to resume her education and get her college degree. It had required three years of working long hours and of scrupulous penny-pinching before Alycia had saved the funds needed to supplement the student loan that would finance her studies.
At first, hurting and wary of men, Alycia had adopted an aloof attitude, remaining cool and distant with them. But as the years passed, the hurt lessened and her self-confidence grew. She relaxed her guard enough to engage in friendly conversation with men. Intellectually, Alycia knew that m
en came in as many varied personalities as women, but emotionally she felt unequal to the complications attendant to a personal involvement with any man.
Until Sean Halloran knocked her off her feet, that is. An image of him filled her mind, pushing the last lingering traces of her memories back to the deepest reaches of her subconscious where they belonged.
What was she to do about Sean Halloran?
Heat suffused her body and Alycia moved uneasily in her chair. Or, perhaps more to the point, how was she to deal with her own uncharacteristic behavior with Sean the night before? Her immediate and sensual response had been so completely unlike her. Hadn’t her seeming lack of sensuality been Doug’s major complaint? And hadn’t she retaliated by scathingly accusing him of being interested in nothing but sex and football, in that order?
Yes and yes. Alycia inwardly cringed, but faced the truth of the answers. If Doug had loudly voiced his disappointment with her lack of response to his lovemaking, she in turn had as loudly condemned him as a total sensualist and a glory-hungry jock. And while she firmly believed her assessment of Doug’s nature was correct, she had as firmly believed his assessment of her. Nothing had occurred during the nine-year interval to shake that belief.
Until the “occurrence” of Sean Halloran, Alycia’s almost instantaneous response to Sean had not only shaken her long-held belief, it had shattered it, and her as well. Recognizing this unsuspected sensual facet of her character was one thing; dealing with it was a different story. Alycia wished she could rewrite the plot.
Fully aware that she could not alter the effects of her actions, Alycia now had to decide how to cope with them. Should she follow Karla’s advice and run for her life? Or obey the urgings of her senses to see Sean again, get to know the man as well as she had come to know the historian through her study of his work?
The inner conflict was back, tugging Alycia in opposite directions. Part of her, the once hurt part of her, wanted to turn away, into her shell of remote aloofness. But another part of her—an unfamiliar, newly discovered, intrepid part of her—yearned to explore the attraction and fascination she felt for him.
The shrill ring of the telephone offered respite from difficult decision making. Telling herself she was grateful for the distraction, Alycia jumped up and ran to the wall phone, snatching the receiver off the hook on the second ring.
“Hello?” she answered breathlessly.
“Hello, yourself” Sean replied. “Why do you sound out of breath?”
The rich, attractive sound of his voice made her knees weak and her throat dry. “Because I ran to the phone.” Alycia shut her eyes in despair at the huskiness in her own voice.
“Did you know it was me calling?”
Although she assumed he was teasing, a chill slipped along the length of her spine. She had known it was Sean, and that was the real reason she’d dashed for the phone! Shaking off a sudden strange, inexplicable sensation, Alycia drew a deep soundless breath and said, “How could I have known it was you?”
“Because I suddenly felt compelled to call you ? “ he asked in a tone so serious it increased the chill at her spine.
Alycia wet her dry lips, but her voice still came out on a parched whisper. “But why?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I—I don’t understand, Sean.” Alycia began to tremble.
“I don’t either.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been thinking about you all day,” he admitted. “Were you thinking of me?”
“Yes.” She tightened her grip on the receiver.
“Alycia.” Her name left his lips on a sigh, yet she heard it in the depths of her soul. “I want to see you, talk to you, be with you. I know it’s still too early for dinner, but may I come for you now?”
Alycia said the only thing she possibly could say in response to his plea, for suddenly she knew there were no hiding places left to run to, not even within her own mind. She was going to see him. She had to see him. As if her reply had been preordained, she softly murmured, ““Yes.”
Doubts assailed her the moment she hung up the phone.
Was she making the biggest mistake of her life?
Was she playing into the hands of a practiced seducer?
Was she completely out of her mind?
Alycia bit her lip as she considered the questions zinging through her mind. Then, gently lifting her teeth from her tender lip, she raised her chin defiantly.
Was she going to toss away the opportunity to get to know the most attractive and interesting, not to mention sexy, man she had ever met? Never mind learning more about herself in the process?
She wasn’t that crazy!
Damning caution, Alycia took off for her room, shedding her clothes as she ran. Excited anticipation singing through her veins, she dashed into the bathroom. A quick under-and-out of the shower, a brisk rub-dry with the towel, and she was dashing back to her room.
During the ensuing fifteen minutes the simple act of dressing turned into a complicated feat of endurance. She had completed the underwear stage of lacy panties and bra when the phone rang.
Sean? The possibility that it might be him, calling again for whatever reason, had Alycia reversing her running steps to the kitchen. But it wasn’t Sean who replied to her gasped “Hello?” it was Andrea, calling to say that she was having dinner at the home of a friend. Alycia was off and running again an instant after replacing the receiver. She then had five whole undisturbed minutes, during which she stepped into sheer panty hose, camel wool slacks, and dark brown boots. She was pulling a ginger-colored bulky sweater over her head when the phone rang again. Deciding this time she’d ignore it, she glared at the doorway. Several running steps later she tore the receiver from the hook. It wasn’t Sean this time, either. It was Karla, calling to inform Alycia that she was having dinner with the group of friends she’d spent the afternoon with. After replacing the receiver once more, Alycia walked to her bedroom. She regained her breath while carefully applying a light toning makeup to her flushed cheeks. She was attempting to tame the brown shiny mass of her hair when the doorbell rang.
Suddenly breathless again and more than a little unsure, Alycia froze, the brush handle clutched in her hand. The second peal of the bell sent her into motion. The brush clattered to the dresser top as Alycia spun toward the bedroom doorway. The bell rang for the third time as she was disengaging the lock.
Alycia’s long afternoon of self-questioning and doubts vanished when she opened the door and gazed into Sean’s anxious blue eyes.
* * *
Chapter 4
“Hi.” Though soft, Sean’s tone betrayed a confusing thread of relief.
“Hi.” Alycia could hear the uncertainty in her own voice. “Come on in.” Holding his gaze, she moved back, swinging the door open. “I just have to put on my coat.”
Sean stepped onto the mat inside the door. “I’ll wait here. I don’t want to leave slushy footprints all over the floor.”
His consideration of such a minor thing as a little wet snow touched her in a gentle, warming way. With a flash of memory, she recalled that he’d done the same the previous afternoon, while she had blithely trudged into the room, unmindful of the snow clinging to her boots.
“You sound like a man diligently housebroken by a concerned mother.” She smiled at him over her shoulder as she walked to the hall closet to remove her coat.
“Father,” Sean corrected her. “My mother didn’t hang around long enough to housebreak me. If you’ll bring that coat here,” he went on before she could comment, “I’ll help you into it.”
“Not necessary” she said, slipping into the garment and buttoning it with fingers that shook slightly. Filing his provocative statement about his mother in the back of her mind for later discussion, she looked at him questioningly. “Is it very cold outside? Will I need the scarf, cap, and mittens?”
Observing her intently, Sean was shaking his head negatively before she’d finished speaking. “It’s no
t bad; the temp’s in the mid-thirties. You might need your mittens, but I think you can leave the other things. Besides, I left the car running so it’ll be warm inside.”
After her self-imposed confinement indoors all day, the chill in the late afternoon air felt refreshing, and it deepened the blusher Alycia had applied to her cheeks. Grasping her arm firmly, Sean assisted her to the Cadillac, which sat purring some two feet from the curb. Alycia carefully negotiated the dirty, tire-rutted snow that had been pushed aside by the municipal plows.
The interior of the car was warm, warm and luxurious, as Alycia had discovered the day before. The seat cradled her body in plush comfort. She felt cosseted, shielded from the wet, cold snow that had been shoveled into high banks along the curb.
As Sean carefully drove the big car into the plowed street, Alycia turned in her seat to look at him. “I had thought all the restaurants would be closed.”
Sean slanted a grin at her but kept his gaze steady on the street. “Most of them are. I know. I must have phoned a dozen of them this afternoon.”
“But then where are we going?” Alycia frowned. “Do you know?”
“Yes, I know.”
Alycia gave a small burst of confused laughter. “Well, are you going to tell me or is it a secret?”
Sean’s hesitation was brief but telling, as was the way his grip tightened on the steering wheel. “Ah—the restaurant in my motel is open; we’re going there.”
“Your motel?” she repeated, disappointment robbing her voice of inflection.
Sean’s wide shoulders rippled with a shrug. ‘The motel where I’m staying,” he explained tersely. “Although several professors kindly offered me their guest rooms, I prefer the privacy of a motel room.”
“I see.” The feeling of disappointment expanding inside her, Alycia smiled faintly and settled into her seat to stare through the windshield. She understood why he’d prefer the privacy of a motel room, she told herself, fighting a confusing sensation of betrayal. In addition to being famous, not only as a historian but as a prolific writer of historical fiction, Sean was an extremely attractive bachelor. Even without the allure of fame, he would very likely have his pick of any number of eager and willing females. Why shouldn’t he take advantage of the opportunities offered? she demanded of herself. A hollow, sick feeling invaded her stomach, telling her that she was losing the inner fight. Sean might well be a free agent, free to pick and choose whomever he wished to share the privacy of his motel room with. But, dammit, why had he chosen her? The answer was obvious, of course. Her response to him the night before had been both very eager and more than willing, if not flat-out wanton! Alycia had to clench her teeth to keep from crying aloud in protest. She was not and never had been wanton, and she would not be just another opportunity for any man!