The Invitation

by Jude Deveraux

  Mentally she shook herself, forcing herself to stop fantasizing. The man inside was just a boy, and he was her business partner and nothing more. Quietly, so as not to alert him, she closed the car door and entered the house. It was redolent of cooking, alive with warmth and light. Never had the pretty house felt more welcoming.

  He was standing in the kitchen, facing the sink, his back to her. His sleeves were rolled up, his strong brown forearms damp with soapy water as he washed a sink full of dirty dishes. For a moment she stood silently in the doorway watching him. She knew that he was a banker, a student of numbers, a man who had spent most of his life with his nose pointed toward a book, but he had the body of an athlete. Having grown up in Chandler, she knew that the Montgomerys loved any form of exercise; they rowed and swam, rode horses, climbed up rock faces to the tops of mountains, walked when they could have ridden.

  William’s body was evidence of all that exercise. Under his thin cotton shirt, his brown back was one hillock of muscle after another, hills and valleys of a landscape of great beauty. Strong thighs strained against his trousers, tight buttocks curved against the fabric. Jackie had to put her hands to her sides, her fingers curled into a taut ball, to try to still the ache she felt at wanting to touch him. She wanted to slip her arms about his waist, press her face against his back, then feel him turn to kiss her upturned face.

  “Would you like some coffee?” he asked softly, his back still turned toward her. His words made her jump. How long had he known she was there? Had he been watching her face in the reflection of the dark kitchen window in front of him?

  “No,” she managed to whisper as she turned to leave the room. She should, of course, have accepted his offer of coffee, then sat down with him and had a bit of conversation. She had sat with hundreds of men in the evenings, talking of planes or of people they both knew, of politics, of anything that came to her mind. Rarely had she been attracted to any of them. And certainly she’d never felt like this before. What caused attraction anyway? she wondered. What made you able to sit and talk comfortably with one man and not with another? Often she’d seen women fall hard for some guy or another, men who didn’t seem in any way special to her. Now she was the one who was falling, the one whose palms got sweaty whenever a certain man was near. She was the one who was unable to talk or even to think coherently when he was close to her.

  But whatever she felt for him, she reminded herself, this man was taboo.

  Her head came up, and she gave her best adult smile to William. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”

  She meant to insult him, to put him in his place, which was in the nursery, but he didn’t look insulted. Instead, he gave her a slow smile that made her feel quite warm. “I wouldn’t mind going to bed. How about you?”

  To her consternation, Jackie felt herself blushing like an eighteen-year-old virgin. Worse than her confusion was the fact that she could think of no lighthearted put-down that would let him know that he was a boy while she was a mature, sophisticated woman.

  Looking at her confusion, he gave a little laugh, then said, “Come outside. I want to show you something.”

  Companionably he slipped her hand through his strong bent arm and led her outside. “I missed you tonight,” he said softly, holding on to her hand when she tried to pull away. “All right,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll behave. I have been thinking about expansion.”

  That got her attention. “Expansion? How can we expand something that hasn’t even been born yet? When you’re as young as you are, you think that everything is possible, but when you get older, you learn that there are limits to what a person can do.” There, she thought, that should do it. That should put him in his place. Her body might lust after him, but her mind was a great deal wiser than his.

  William didn’t even seem to notice the little bit of wisdom she was offering him. “When you’re as rich as I am, a great many things are possible.”

  So much for wisdom, she thought. When it came to a toss-up between wisdom and money, unfortunately money usually won. She told herself that she should be offended by his blatant reference to his wealth, but on the other hand, she rather liked it. She’d always had contempt for people who pretended that they had a difficult life in spite of the fact that they had servants lounging about, waiting for the opportunity to serve.

  However, like what he said or not, she wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to remind him of the age difference. “I think that as you grow older, you’ll find that there are some things in this world that carry more weight than money.”

  “And what are they?”

  “Intelligence. Wisdom. Happiness. Ah…ah…” She thought for a moment, then looked up into his smiling eyes, the moonlight on his hair. He was firmly holding on to her hand. With a sigh of defeat, she said, “What’s your idea?” She was a woman who liked to do, and this talk of philosophical ideals was wearing on her.

  William laughed—that patronizing little laugh that was beginning to annoy her—kissed her on the forehead as though she were a child, and pointed to the empty fields that lay to the south of Eternity. “We could build another airstrip there, a place where a couple of big planes could take off. A Bellanca maybe. Is that the right name?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, “that’s the right name.”

  “We could start a carrier service from Denver to Los Angeles.”

  “This is Chandler, not Denver.”

  “We open an airstrip outside Denver, but we run the business from here, carrying goods from my family to Denver, delivering there, picking up people and cargo in Denver, then flying to Los Angeles.”

  He didn’t seem to notice how quiet Jackie had become. “Who’s going to fly these planes?”

  “You can train people. I have a few cousins who’d love to learn how to fly. And if you become the first woman to win the Taggie, you’ll attract many women who want to learn to fly. Maybe you could have all women pilots. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

  She was sure he was trying to be nice to her, saying he’d fund a company of all women pilots, and in other circumstances she’d have been grateful, but now all she heard was the word “Taggie.” Instantly she pulled away from him. “Win the Taggie? Are you out of your mind? I have no intention of entering that race, much less trying to win it.”

  “Why?” he asked simply. “You’re the best pilot in the world, better than any man, certainly better than any other woman. You can fly rings around anyone. Last year the man who won the Taggie didn’t have half your experience or skill. He was nothing compared to you.”

  Heaven, but it felt nice to be confronted with such blatant hero worship. Especially since she knew that what he’d said was true. She’d once flown with the winner of last year’s Taggie, and at the time she’d thought he shouldn’t have a license to fly a child’s string toy, much less his own plane. He’d won on luck, not skill.

  “I’m not going to enter that race or any other,” she said, turning on her heel and starting to walk away.

  He caught her arm. “But why, Jackie? You’re the best pilot in America, maybe in the world, but you never enter any of the big races. You used to set records for endurance and speed, but a few years ago you stopped entering races. It was as though everyone else kept moving forward but you stopped. I used to think you’d lost your nerve, but that’s not true; I’ve seen that you haven’t lost your nerve. So why won’t you enter the race and win it?”

  “Because I’m too old,” she said quickly, wanting to say anything to make him stop talking about this. “My reflexes aren’t as fast as those of these youngsters flying today. I’ve been in this business a long, long time and—”

  William said a very vulgar word that perfectly and quite correctly described what she was trying to make him believe. “You are lying to me. Why?”

  She hated it when people didn’t believe what they were told. Why couldn’t people just accept what others told them? Why couldn’t William accept that she was too old to fly in t
hat blasted race and leave it at that? “I don’t like races,” she said. “They are a useless waste of gasoline in a time of need in our country. While other people are hungry, pilots are engaging in senseless waste. When you’re older, you’ll realize that money can be better spent in more intelligent ways than on races and other folderol.”

  At that little speech, William snorted in derision. “What’s wrong with the American economy right now is the absence of money in circulation. People are hoarding what funds they have, too terrified to spend. What this country needs is more spending, not less. And races like the Taggie give depressed people pleasure.”

  He stopped talking and looked at her hard, as though he wanted to see inside her soul. When she turned her head away so he couldn’t see into her eyes, he put his fingertips under her chin and raised her face to meet his eyes. “There’s more to this than you’re saying. Why won’t you tell me the truth?”

  Angrily she jerked away from him, moving into the darkness of the night, into the black shade of the old dress shop so he couldn’t see into her eyes. Stupid, she thought, it was really stupid of her to feel so bad because she was disappointing him. Many, many people had thought she should enter races and competitions, and she’d laughed their suggestions off. But she had an irrational desire to please William.

  In spite of what she meant to say, the words that came out of her mouth startled her. “Why? What does it matter whether I win some race or not?” There was an almost plaintive tone to her voice, she thought in disgust. Why don’t you like me as I am? she seemed to be saying.

  “I want you to be remembered,” he answered simply, and it didn’t take a genius to know what he meant. The history books always remembered the people who did the most, the best, who flew the highest, the fastest, the longest, whatever. If Jackie stopped setting records, winning races, the things that she had done would die with her. Never in her life would she say so aloud, but she had thought of this many times. Sometimes she felt anger and quite a bit of envy to read that some whippersnapper of a pilot who didn’t have as much knowledge in his head as Jackie had in her little finger, had won a place in the history books by setting some aviation record.

  “You’ve thought of it,” he said, as much to himself as to her. When she turned away from him again, he took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll stop. For tonight, anyway, but not forever. You’re going to tell me the truth if I have to…”

  “To what?” she asked, meaning to challenge him in a tough sort of way, but her voice came out instead in a tone of teasing.

  “I’ll have to challenge you to a duel.” Even in the dark she could see that his eyes were sparkling.

  “Do I get to choose the weapons?”

  “Sure,” he answered in the same tone. “Anything you want. Swords, pistols.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “A wrestling match.”

  “Airplanes,” she said. “We will duel with planes.” She started laughing when William groaned as though in great agony.

  As they laughed, their eyes locked. What was more dangerous than shared laughter? Laughter was more powerful than all the kisses in the world. You could keep from falling in love with a man whose only attraction was a feeling of sexual interest, but how could you not fall in love with a man who made you laugh? Laughing with a man made you dream of a life with a man who could see the bright side of life, a man who would smile when the going got worse.

  “Don’t,” she said softly and turned away from him, starting back to the house.

  He didn’t move from where he was but instead watched her walk away from him.

  Chapter Five

  Two days later, after yet another restless night, Jackie knew she had to do something. Each night she seemed to turn over many times, and each time she awoke and listened for a sound from William. Of course she knew that he was two floors above her and she couldn’t possibly hear him, but that didn’t make any difference. She knew he was there; she could feel his presence.

  On the morning of the third day, at about three A.M., she awoke and had a mature, intelligent talk with herself. Her conclusion was that either he had to leave or she would go crazy. When she was younger, she always liked to know why she did something, and if she found that her behavior was based on something childish, like jealousy or envy, she tried to overcome the feeling. But with age came the wisdom to know that everyone was human. For whatever reason, she knew that she had to get rid of him. Suppose Terri came to visit and found her and William occupying the same house? She could hear all the snide hometown things that would be said about “robbing the cradle” and “wet behind the ears.” If this were Paris she might get away with what seemed to be occupying her every waking and sleeping thought, but this was backwoods, unsophisticated Chandler, Colorado, and a thirty-eight-year-old woman did not take up with a man ten years younger than herself.

  And if the age difference wasn’t enough, there was William’s talk of the Taggie. She needed to stop that right now. William had the eyes of a zealot, of a do-gooder. He meant for her to win that race so she could enter the history books. With that sparkle in his eyes, he was likely to do something absurd, such as announce to the town that she was going to enter, hoping to force her to change her mind.

  As she began to dress, Jackie couldn’t help feeling sad, for she knew that what she was doing was possibly the stupidest thing she’d ever done in her life, but even that knowledge didn’t keep her from doing it. Having a man with the money and business acumen of William Montgomery was something that every underpaid glory hound of a pilot dreamed of. William wasn’t trying to steal the spotlight from Jackie, nor was he trying to take over the directorship of the business. He just wanted to stay in the background and do all the boring work of managing the money. He deferred to Jackie at every turn, saying things like “I’m sure you know best.”

  It was infuriating. But what was really infuriating about him was that she loved being around his slow, deliberate ways. She didn’t know how else to explain it: William made her feel safe.

  The first day he had asked her where she kept her books, and they then had gone through an annoying hassle while Jackie figured out that he wasn’t trying to get into her bedroom where she had her one and only bookcase. He had wanted ledgers telling who owed what and how much to her. “Oh, that,” she’d said, then began to rattle off to him how much various people in town owed her for the use of the airfield, for carrying a package to Denver, for begging a ride with her to Trinidad. She could remember who had paid her and how much was still owed. She remembered dates of flights and how long they took. She remembered who had paid her in chickens and who in cash.

  After sitting spellbound while listening to this rendition of her monetary life, William blinked a few times and said he’d buy ledgers and draw up a proper set of books. Trying to be as flippant as possible, Jackie had swept from the room, tossing over her shoulder, “I hope you don’t expect me to record every penny I make in some book.”

  Jackie’s plan was to make William say he was leaving; also she wanted to make it quite clear to him and to anyone visiting them that there was nothing whatsoever between them except business. So maybe in trying to reach this end she hadn’t exactly been the most gracious of business partners. And it was indeed stupid to try to sabotage herself, but with every passing day she liked William more.

  Nothing she said seemed to bother him. He was the soul of calmness. When three people had called in one day to cancel planned flights to Denver, she could have pulled the hair out of the nearest person, which of course was William. All day long she’d picked on him. “Of course, what would a kid like you know about disappointment?” she said. “You haven’t been alive long enough to understand how difficult life can sometimes be.” William hadn’t said a word to her, just raised one eyebrow in a way that made her want to crawl under a table. It would have been easier to believe he was a kid if he had acted like one.

  With each passing minute Jackie could see the possibility of danger in being too near t
his young man. So she strengthened her resolve to stay away from him. The first night he had used her kitchen when she wasn’t there, but the second night he’d asked if he could come down from the top floor and use her kitchen, since all he had was a hot plate. She didn’t feel she could refuse him this request, and for one long, delicious moment, she thought of sitting at the table in the kitchen with a man and laughing across a bottle of wine. She had to shake herself to make the image go away. At dinnertime she had found that she had to make an emergency drive into Chandler to pick up a box of tissues.

  While she was in the local diner having a plate of something the cook called the day’s special, Reynata had come to sit by her.

  “Do you mind?” the young, beautiful girl asked.

  “Not at all,” Jackie replied.

  After the girl was seated and had ordered a Coke, she looked at Jackie. “Are you going to be the first woman to win the Taggie?”

  That had brought Jackie out of her melancholy. “Where did you hear something like that?”

  “One guess.”

  Jackie smiled. “I seem to remember that William did mention that. He has a bad case of hero worship. You know, a lot of young men feel that way about older women.”

  “I’m not sure that’s how William feels about you.” Rey was smiling and fiddling with her straw.

  At that Jackie jumped up from the table. “Look, there is nothing between Billy Montgomery and me except a business arrangement, and anyone who says there is, is a damned liar! He’s a kid to me and nothing more. I used to change his diapers. I can’t even look at him without seeing him with a milk mustache on his fat little-boy face. I’m always wanting to pat his head and sing lullabies to him. I want to—” She broke off because every person in the diner had stopped talking and was looking at her.