Isn't it Romantic?

by Ronda Thompson

  A low whistle slithered from the space between Charlie’s teeth. “Figured her for some guy’s play-thing when she rushed out of the hotel. Hot damn and she’s talented, too?”

  “A matter of opinion,” Trey grumbled. Kat Summers did what any grandmother in America could do as far as he was concerned. She wove incredulous tales of adventure and expected the reader to identify with shallow, physically-flawless characters. The stories were always predictable—they always lived happily-ever-after.

  “Bullshit,” he mumbled.

  “Wind’s coming from the stockyards,” Charlie agreed, drawing air into his lungs in a huge gulp. Slowly, he released his breath. “Smell that money.”

  Trey eyed the cabby darkly and refused to either comply or comment on his misinterpretation. His thoughts returned to Katrine Summerville. Her novels were pure fantasy. The hero certainly never came home to find his heroine’s things missing and a note taped to the dresser mirror. That was reality. His reality.

  Once upon a time, Trey might have believed in everlasting love. Once upon a time, he dreamed of writing the great American novel, but that was before Linda Tate stole his dreams. That was before his crash course in divorce.

  Their story had not ended happily. In his quest to please Linda by following in the footsteps of her newspaper tycoon father, Trey lost his dreams and eventually the woman he tried to pacify. He worked long hours at the paper, trying to measure up to her expectations. If he wasn’t exhausted from meeting a deadline, or Linda wasn’t engrossed in a romance novel, they made love. For six years they pretended contentment with each other, then Trey came home to the note. Linda wanted a divorce. She’d met another man. A rock-and-roll singer for Christ’s sake!

  His wife had completely blind-sided him. Her note said he’d become too boring, too structured, and lacked imagination or spontaneity. In short, Linda molded him into what she thought she wanted, then decided she wanted something else—another man—another chance to fulfill her unrealistic expectations of love. His wife hadn’t needed security, she longed for unbridled passion, brooding stares and whatever other mush she’d been filling her head with while he slaved for her. Romance had ruined their marriage, or at least her view of what she imagined true love to be. Trey hadn’t fought the divorce. How could he compete with fantasy?

  Disillusioned and suffering the sting of her rejection, he’d quit her father’s paper and accepted an offer in Dallas as a book review columnist. Trey decided if he couldn’t write his own novel, he’d review the efforts of those who could, or in some cases, thought they could.

  Romance novelists being among the latter. Although he admitted the story sometimes started out believable enough—a woman attracted to the wrong man and vice versa, soon formula took over. Through a series of ridiculous trials and tribulations, the hero suddenly becomes everything the heroine wants him to be, and of course, this helps them to live happily-ever-after.

  “Here we are,” the cabby said, pulling the cab up to the curb.

  Good, Trey thought. He wasn’t wasting another thought on Katrine Summerville, or his illogical attraction to her. Talk about the wrong woman. Trey placed his award on the seat and exited the cab. The door locks clicked and Charlie raced ahead, cursing the cold.

  Trey’s steps were unhurried. He loved the cold. Hot blood, he guessed, for he seldom wore a coat. After he entered the establishment, he realized people obviously seldom wore a tuxedo to a bookstore. He received several curious glances while striding to the new release section. As he plucked a copy of Robert Ludlum’s latest from the shelf, a conversation on the next row captured his attention.

  “B–But I drove all the way over here for that book,” a woman stammered. “I’m not leaving without it!”

  “Then I guess you ain’t leaving. Listen, Lady, I promised my wife I’d get this book for her the first opportunity I got. Sorry.”

  Charlie’s apology didn’t sound too sincere in Trey’s opinion. He walked around the aisle.

  “No, you listen, Mister! I’m a woman alone. I risked being sexually assaulted or worse by driving over here this time of night. If you were a gentleman, you’d let me have the last copy.”

  “I’m no gentleman,” Charlie assured her. “Not if it means facing a one-hundred-eighty pound pregnant woman with swollen ankles empty handed. These days, if Nadine ain’t happy, ain’t no one happy, understand?”

  “Problem Charlie?” Trey glanced between the cabby and the endangered woman. She was a healthy specimen he doubted any pervert in his right mind would mess with, and to add further discouragement, she sported a head full of curlers.

  “This woman’s mad because my hands are quicker than hers,” Charlie explained. “I snatched the book first. It belongs to me.”

  “The smart—polite,” Trey corrected, “thing to do would be to surrender the novel.”

  The cabby snorted in response. “Well, you ain’t got to go home to Nadine tonight, so why don’t you stay out of this, Mr. T. West.”

  “T. West.” The curler woman gasped. “The columnist?”

  He cast a dark look in Charlie’s direction and nodded. The loose folds of skin around the woman’s jaws began to quiver. When she removed the newspaper from beneath her beefy arm, he began to search his pockets for a pen. It was silly, but on occasion, only when someone realized Trey Westmoreland was in reality, T. West, he’d been asked to autograph his column. He wasn’t prepared when the bulk of the paper swatted him on the head.

  “How dare you show your face on this aisle!” she shouted. “I used to love your column until you attacked Kat Summers! No self-respecting romance reader would give you the time of day after that!”

  Ducking another swat, Trey stumbled backwards and knocked over an empty cardboard display case. Charlie made a mad dash for the pay out counter.

  “Come on!” he shouted. “I didn’t know Nadine had a twin!”

  With one eye trained on the threat guarding her sacred romance aisle, Trey slid the novel he held inside his jacket and bent to right the display case. Kat Summer’s name loomed in large letters before his eyes. Her name and a cover depicting a steamy picture of a hunk with muscles and a woman with cleavage. His vision blurred, and for a moment, the couple more than strongly resembled him and Katrine Summerville.

  He blinked. “I’m losing my mind.”

  “He’s stealing a book!” the curler woman shouted.

  Seemingly from nowhere, a clerk appeared. “Open your jacket, please,” he instructed.

  People seeped from the woodwork. Embarrassed, Trey complied. “This is all a misunderstanding,” he said calmly. “I’m T. West, the columnist, and I don’t have to steal books; the paper reimburses me once I provide them with a receipt.”

  “Meter’s running!” Charlie’s shout echoed around the silent bookstore. A buzzer announced his departure.

  “Could I see some identification?” the clerk snootily responded.

  Breathing a small sigh of relief, Trey retrieved his wallet and presented a driver’s license. “Now if I could just pay for the book and get the hell out of here, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Ah, this is not proper identification.”

  Trey glanced down and felt heat explode in his cheeks. He snatched a condom from the clerk’s fingers, replacing the article with his license. “Now, as I was saying, if I could—”

  “Hold on a minute.” The clerk raised a hand. “This says you’re Trey Westmoreland, not T. West.”

  Accusing silence followed. Trey mentally cursed his petulance for privacy. Surprisingly, a woman came to his defense.

  “They’re one and the same,” a female employee provided. “My boy works in the mail room at the paper. I’ve seen that man at the restaurant down the street and my boy said his real name is Trey Westmoreland.”

  “Thank you,” Trey said through clenched teeth “I’ll drop by the mail room and say hello to your son tomorrow.”

  “Don’t go near my Jimmy,” the woman warned “Any man who�
��d viciously rip out the heart of romance isn’t fit to speak to my son.”

  “Amen,” the curler woman agreed.

  “Maybe we should get you checked out so you can go,” the clerk suggested nervously.

  As the she-wolves began to gather around him, their eyes glittering and their teeth bared, a thirst for blood clearly stamped on their faces, Trey quickly followed the clerk to the pay out counter. The transaction seemed to take forever, but finally, he escaped.

  “This has been a night in hell,” he grumbled, settling into the cab.

  Charlie had his nose buried in a book. He marked his place with one finger and glanced up. “What the heck was all that about?”

  Trey sighed tiredly. “Don’t you read my column, Charlie?”

  The cabby frowned. “A newspaper column? Heck no. When I read, I do it strictly for enjoyment.”

  “Well, if you don’t want to waste your time and money on a poor selection, you should research the choices. I have a knack for knowing what most people want and what they don’t. Which reminds me, I need to stop by the paper and check on things for my editor before you take me home.”

  “Fine by me.” Charlie handed him the book. “Keep my place.”

  Once the cabby shifted the car into gear, Trey glanced down. His gaze focused on a likeness of himself holding a half-naked Katrine Summerville in his arms. He swore loudly. “Is this what you took on a crazed woman in curlers over? Is this what got me beaten up and nearly accused of shoplifting?”

  “You were shoplifting?” Charlie whispered, obviously shocked.

  “Of course not,” Trey defended. He rubbed his forehead. “I really don’t want to talk about it right now. Just be quiet and drive.”

  Charlie managed to remain silent for a good two seconds. “If you don’t feel like talking, maybe you’d switch on the overhead and read to me. That Kat Summers sure knows how to get a person hooked right from the beginning.”

  Shelly’s sweet voice sounded in Trey’s head. No one can hook like my mom. How could an innocent misunderstanding lead to such a complete disaster? Annoyed all over again, he reached up: and switched on the light. His finger rested between page one and two. “The wind whistled an eerie tune through the moors—“

  “I read that part,” Charlie interrupted. “Start at the top of the next page.”

  “Sabrina unconsciously moistened her dry lips as his hands strayed to the fastenings of his breeches … and this is page two?” Trey asked, lifting a dark brow.

  “It’s a dream,” Charlie explained. “If Kat starts right out with the hot stuff, it’s usually a dream on a flashback.”

  “I thought you bought this for your wife.”

  “A man’s got to read something while he’s in the can,” Charlie reasoned. “Go on.”

  Trey unconsciously moistened his dry lips. “Sabrina knew she shouldn’t be here, not like this, not with him. Rolf was her intended’s brother. Still, she couldn’t find the will to leave, to glance away from the mesmerizing tune his fingers played against the compliant fabric of his clothes. Slowly he slid the coarse wool breeches down his muscled thighs—why don’t these men ever have flabby thighs, or skinny thighs, or—”

  “You got muscled thighs?” Charlie asked irritably.

  “I guess so.”

  “I don’t, and it doesn’t bother me none. Keep reading.”

  His passenger obeyed. Trey read until his throat ached, until his eyes stung, until he realized he was on chapter nineteen and he and Charlie were sitting in front of the paper with the meter running. “Are you charging me for this?”

  The cabby looked insulted. “Hey, you could have stopped whenever you wanted.”

  A burst of anger caused Trey’s already heated temperature to rise a notch. He cursed Katrine Summerville while trying to see through the fogged up windows. She had to but walk into his life, and suddenly, he couldn’t seem to get a grip on reality. He’d read her silly book because he felt powerless to stop, as helpless as he’d been to resist her full, ripe lips. She was trouble for him since he first saw her name in print.

  One night with her and he’d been publicly humiliated, not once, but twice, and now he owed a cabby a generous amount for reading a novel written by an author he’d sworn to never review again!

  Charlie pointed to the meter and whistled. “Hope you have a credit card with you.”

  Trey’s expression wasn’t in the least amused while digging for his wallet. “I want a receipt. Jerry Caldwell can pick up the tab for my reading time…” An idea suddenly occurred to him. He could substitute tomorrow’s column with a different one. He glanced down at the book in his lap and smiled. Katrine would pay, too. Fitting, that her latest novel was entitled Passion’s Price.

  Chapter 3

  The smell of caffeine roused Katrine from dreams she couldn’t recall. The knot of discomfort in her stomach, the labored sound of her breath, and the pillow clutched to her chest suggested a lack of memory might be for the best. She hadn’t been dreaming of him, Katrine assured herself. If Trey Westmoreland intruded into her sleep, a shrill scream of rage would have shattered the quiet of morning.

  Had she really slapped him and marched offstage without so much as a backward glance? Had she really let passion rule her head in the arms of the infamous T. West? A man who once said she wrote mush?

  “Coffee’s ready, Mom!” Shelly’s shout floated upstairs.

  Thankful for the intrusion into her disquieting thoughts, a tender smile touched Katrine’s mouth. She winced while rubbing fingers across a puffiness not present prior to last evening. The cause of her swollen lips hadn’t bothered to follow her.

  Katrine wondered if Trey felt as humiliated this morning as she, then refocused her attention on the reason she smiled to begin with. Shelly, the gift God sent when so much had been taken from her.

  Devastated by John’s death, Katrine had at first resented the life growing inside her. Eighteen and alone, she worried how she would properly care for a child. More disturbingly, how she could set herself up for the pain of loving again?

  Without the support of parents or family members, she survived on John’s small insurance policy and nurtured the only thing she truly had left of him. When Shelly came, Katrine realized she’d loved the baby all along. Someone finally needed her, and unlike the mother who had abandoned her at the age of five. This someone would never leave.

  “Mom, get it in gear. You have company.”

  Her heart slammed traitorously against her chest. Trey Westmoreland wouldn’t come crawling to beg forgiveness for his rude behavior, would he? Doubtful, she reasoned, but washed her face, combed her hair and brushed her teeth before slipping into a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, just in case.

  Any disappointment she felt upon finding Cynthia Lane hunched over a paper with Shelly at the kitchen table, quickly turned to anger. “You!” Katrine pointed a finger at the woman who’d been placed on two people’s hit list.

  “Calm down.” Cynthia turned the paper face down on the table. “I had your best interest at heart. It seemed so silly. He needed a date, you needed a date. You’re both talented writers with great careers. You’re both gorgeous. You’re both … going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “I’d prefer to deal with you in Apache fashion. A slow agonizing death, but I’ll settle for a rope.”

  “Mom, why are you being so mean to Cynthia?” Shelly asked. “You liked him, didn’t you?”

  For the sake of her innocent daughter, Katrine brought her temper to a simmer. Not so innocent, she remembered. “Shelly, did you know about this?”

  “No,” Shelly answered, and the pout on her lips bespoke it as truth. “But I would have been all for it. It was nice to see you have a date for a change. Especially with a handsome, put-together—”

  “Speaking of which,” Katrine interrupted. “Your comments both shocked and embarrassed me. Why would you say such outrageous things? And to a perfect stranger?”

  Shelly sighed. “He w
as perfect, wasn’t he? I didn’t lie about anything. I heard you tell Mr. Martin just the other day that your sex scenes sold your novels. Trey did have the kind of body you write about in your books, and he was lusting for you. Any idiot could see that.”

  Katrine opened her mouth to further scold her daughter, then remembered the presence of a third party. “Stay put,” she warned Cynthia before snatching Shelly’s hand. “Come with me, Young Lady.”

  As they entered the den, Katrine glanced approvingly around the living area. Scattered about were authentic relics of a bygone era. Wooden spoons, cast iron skillets, pots and copper kettles. A Navajo blanket lay spread across the terra cotta tile surrounding a stucco fireplace.

  Antiques were her link to other worlds; the past where romance once existed, having died out with the Indians; the buffalo; the measure of a man and the strength of a woman. The twentieth century generated a population of weaklings. A spoiled, self-indulgent, throwaway, if-it’s-too-hard-forget-it, society. Was it any wonder true love found few to bless?

  “Don’t be mad at Cynthia.” Shelly turned a pleading look on her mother. “She’s practically the only friend you have and besides, she just wants what I want, for you to be happy.”

  The child, so much like her mother in appearance, possessed a weapon Katrine had trouble battling. She’d inherited her father’s big, brown eyes.

  “I am happy.” Katrine steered Shelly to the sofa. “I have you and a prosperous career, what else could I want?”

  “A man,” her daughter informed. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

  Seating herself on a leather sofa, Katrine pulled Shelly down beside her. “A man isn’t a necessity to make a woman’s life complete. You’ve been reading my novels. I told you they’re too old for you. It isn’t real life.”

  “It was real to Janie Reardon,” Shelly worried. “Her dad wanted a divorce and her mom went crazy.”

  “We talked about that, remember?” Katrine took Shelly’s hand. “Mrs. Reardon just needs some time away from Janie to adjust. Once she gets her problems settled, she’ll be back.”