by Shirl Henke
The charming, cozy atmosphere did not lift her spirits. For a place to feel cozy it had to have more than one lonely, morose, self-pitying person in it. “Get a grip, Gilly. You'll survive. Lord knows you've already lived through worse,” she muttered to herself. “If only I could have a dog for company, to hell with ‘Gentleman Jeffrey’! There I go again, feeling sorry for myself.”
She walked into the apartment's tiny kitchen—really an alcove off the living room—and opened the fridge. A carton of eggnog sat on an otherwise bare shelf. Hmm. Well, why not? She poured a cup two thirds full and topped it off with a generous swig of bourbon, then eyed it. “Better watch it or I'll end up like my father.” The thought made her shudder. She took a swallow. Not bad. But she knew she had to be careful. After all, look what had happened when she'd imbibed only one screwdriver at that ghastly office party.
She had been ready to cut loose and act just as nuts as the other women. Even Charis had been wild. Whatever had possessed either one of them to go see a male stripper in the first place? It just wasn't their style. But her friend had sure gotten into the spirit of the thing. Jeff seemed to have that kind of effect on women. At first, she hadn't noticed it so much because of the low-key way he dressed—the wire-rimmed glasses, the impoverished-student facade. But gradually she'd begun to see that all women—even ones as seemingly impervious as Abbie at the library—were suckers for a guy with those soulful chocolate eyes and that guileless grin.
Gilly tried to think of something else—like why her best friend hadn't called since that ghastly debacle at the office party. All she had wanted to do was go home and lick her wounds, but she had at least expected Charis to phone and see that she was all right. “You told her you didn't want to be a burden on their holiday plans this year, so what are you bellyaching about?”
The question seemed to hang in the air. Maybe, she hadn't intended for Charis to take her so literally. Maybe, she wanted to see Jeff again. No! Who was she kidding? His face floated in her mind, haunting her awake just as it did in her dreams—actually, nightmares last night. He'd worn red satin again, only this time it was a devil's costume, not a tux; and he'd been leading her down the flaming path to hell. Not that she needed to be led—she was already there.
The phone jangled, interrupting her morose thoughts. When she picked up it was Charis. Gilly sighed. “Look, you're my best bud in the world, but I'm not coming over to foist my gloom on your holidays. Final word.”
“Good. I don't want you to.”
That had Gilly's attention. “Then why—”
“Listen, after you went storming out into the night, I tracked down ‘Gentleman Johnny’ and had quite an interesting talk with him.”
Gilly almost dropped the phone. “You did what?”
“Now, calm down. Hear me out. You of all people should know I'm no pushover. In fact, after we talked, I had Bill do some checking...just to be certain everything Jeff told me was on the up and up.”
“What, pray tell, did he tell you?”
“Enough to convince me that he deserves another chance.” She waited a beat, and when Gilly did not respond, she continued, “I convinced him that you do, too.”
“Big of you—and him,” Gilly replied sourly.
“Don't blow it, sweetie. This is your big chance. I think this guy's the one for you. He's going to call you. Give him a chance, and tell him everything.” She stressed the last word.
“Living it was painful enough, Char. I don't know if I can.”
“You know he's working his way through school by stripping. The least you can do in return is confess you're from Cleveland.”
“It's a hell of a lot worse than that, and you know it.”
“Yeah. So should he.”
* * * *
So should he. Gilly mulled over Charis' words as she paced around the apartment. Dusk brought fat white snowflakes, as if the icebound city needed more White Christmases. Bah, humbug! She dropped the curtain back into place and continued wearing out the new area rug in front of the sofa. If Jeff was so eager to have a mutual baring of souls, why hadn't he called by now?
The doorbell buzzed, and she practically jumped out of her skin. When was the last time someone besides Mrs. Kleinschmidt had come to her door? Frank had. Not a good answer. Not a good question. It was probably the old harridan with some sort of complaint.
Just as Gilly was about to turn the deadbolt, she remembered that Mrs. K had gone to spend the holiday with her sister in Hoboken. She squinted through the cracked glass of the peephole. Jeff stood outside. Or what looked like two Jeffs, each holding a stack of holiday packages. She really had to have that glass fixed, she thought inanely as she struggled to make her vocal cords work. Suddenly, they seemed glued together.
“Who is it?” Brilliant, after looking through the glass!
“It's Jeff, Gilly. Please, let me come in. Did Charis call you?”
“Yes...but…” But what? What was she waiting for—for him to get down on his knees and beg? Come to think of it... Gilly opened the door with clumsy fingers, and there he was. Just looking at him made her knees go weak. A light dusting of snow frosted his glasses and glistened on his black hair and brown leather jacket. His smile was dearly familiar yet tentative as he held out the packages.
“Peace offerings?”
She opened the door wider, and he walked in, carefully depositing the packages on a chair—all but one, a large box tied with a big red bow. That he placed on the floor beside the end of the sofa. He looked around as he shrugged off his jacket. Gilly had always been aware of how extraordinarily graceful he was, even in the simple act of taking off a coat. Now she understood why. Lots of practice. “Charis said you wanted to talk.” She walked over and reached for the damp bomber jacket. The moment she picked it up and felt his heat in the leather, smelled his scent, she knew it was a mistake. Ignoring her racing pulse, she went to hang it in the closet, waiting for him to make the next move.
“I wondered what your place would be like.”
“Not a knockout like Charis and Bill's, is it?”
“I like it better. It fits you, Gilly. Warm, comfortable...” His eyes met hers, and the words faded. “Charis told me a lot of things about you—about how you grew up—that I needed to understand.” He paused for a moment, then plunged ahead. “Now, I want to explain about me.” He searched her face.
Deliberately, she had not come close to him. She stood across the room, afraid that if she so much as touched him, she'd melt into a puddle like the snow off his sneakers. “Okay. Have a seat, and let's talk.” She gestured to the sofa behind him. When he started to sit down, she said, “You look cold. How about some coffee first?”
“No, no thanks. Please, let's just talk for a while.”
He waited while she warily took a seat on a chair across from him. “I did check up on you, Jeff. You caught me at it. I know your family is well enough off that you shouldn't have to...to do what you do for money.”
“I sure as hell don't do it because I like it.” His voice was grim.
She could sense the tension in his body as he leaned forward and combed his fingers through his hair, then clenched his fists. “Why, then?” she asked softly.
“It all began when I was a kid, I suppose. My father and I were always oil and water. I'm Jeffrey Lyle Brandt the Fourth, you know.”
“I never knew anyone with a Roman numeral in his name before.”
He chuckled at the artless way she said it. “You are the real deal, Gilly. That's what I love about you...among other things.” He paused and cleared his throat, then plunged ahead. “Charis described your childhood—the poverty, and your dad's abuse. I guess growing up in Scarsdale isn't so bad by comparison, but I always felt like an outsider. Let me rephrase that. I wanted to be an outsider. I felt suffocated by the way my family lived. And, yes, poor little rich boy, my mother and father did leave me and my sister with hired help a lot of the time. I was sent to prep schools in part to get me out of th
eir hair.
“One summer, my sophomore year, I fell in with a kid on the yard crew at our country place. David Strongswimmer—you've heard me mention him. It was quite a revelation—a bright, ambitious guy who was working his way through school—high school. We became good friends.”
“And your family didn't approve.”
“That's putting it mildly. In addition to being the wrong class, he was the wrong race—Native American. Iroquois. And his father, who worked high iron here in the city, was a shaman.”
“The medicine man you told me about.” Gilly was fascinated, unaware that she was leaning toward him.
Jeff could hardly concentrate on what he had come prepared to say when the butter-yellow velour robe she was wearing gaped open and he could see the swell of her breasts. He nodded, then continued, “Yes. He had a way with people. Almost as if he could see inside them. Whatever he saw inside me, he must've liked, because he practically adopted me after that.”
“He's the one who gave you the beaded necklace you wear so often.”
He tugged the leather strap out from beneath his sweater. “When things got really bad between my father and me, the Strongswimmer family was always there for me, especially after my father issued his ultimatum—go to Harvard or he'd disinherit me. It wasn't only that Harvard was his alma mater and a Brandt tradition, sending me to Cambridge was also a way of separating me from my friends.”
“And you refused.”
He nodded. “I enrolled at NYU. Worked my way through a couple of years, but it wasn't easy. Unlike one very smart lady I know, I hadn't exactly applied myself during my high school career. No scholarships. Dave worked high iron with his dad, and they got me on. Money was damn good, and I figured I could save enough over the summer to pay for the next year's tuition. But then...”
Gilly could see that he was struggling with what came next. “Something awful must have happened.” She shivered just thinking about those men walking on girders sixty stories above the ground.
“I almost got Dave killed. I'd only been on the job a couple of weeks. Never had a fear of heights before that, thought I could handle it. But one day, I panicked when I made a misstep and grabbed Dave's arm. He went over, while I managed to catch hold of the girder we were on when I fell. He dropped six stories before he broke his own fall by catching an electrical line.” He started to sweat just remembering it. Uncertain how long he'd been sitting there swamped by the horrible memories, he was surprised when Gilly handed him a cup of steaming coffee and knelt by his feet on the rug.
“He didn't die.” She prayed his friend hadn't been permanently injured.
“No. He was able to hang on until they reached him and hauled him back up. Neither he nor his father blamed me. Said that kind of thing happens to beginners all the time. Dave went right back to work the next day. I couldn't. I was broke, guilty, and confused as hell...so I joined the Navy and tried to find myself.
“Dad had always pushed me toward the law, and I'd always resisted, but after the service, I decided it wasn't the law that was the problem. It was my father. I was able to scrimp by on GI Bill money and finish my bachelor's in history, then enroll in the law program at NYU with grades good enough for a scholarship.”
“But not enough money in it to pay for tuition plus food and rent.” Gilly had been there, done that. “I worked all kinds of jobs while I was going to Oberlin, too.”
“But not stripping.”
“No,” she conceded. “No one ever offered me the chance.”
“But you graduated anyway. I might have, too, but Ira Strongswimmer developed arthritis and had to quit work. Then, he contracted heart disease and ran up some pretty substantial medical bills that the family couldn't handle.”
“So you stepped in.”
“I tried to bargain with my dad for a loan—I'd go to Harvard if he'd cough up the money for Ira's surgery. I honestly thought he'd go for it, but he knew by then that I'd never spend my life the way he wanted. He refused. So I told the Strongswimmers that my rich daddy had given me the money and then took out a loan to pay off their bills. They've been repaying me as best they can afford; but with tuition, living expenses, and loan payments...I had to drop out.
“That's when I met Archie Kolcheski. He offered me a chance to make really big bucks for only a few hours a week, leaving me time to study. The catch was that I had to go to work whenever he called me. Since it was mostly nights and didn't interfere with my class schedule, I agreed. I didn't like it, but I did it.
“Then, I met this woman from small-town Ohio, society family, posh job, luxury digs...and, what can I say? I fell for her even though she seemed to be everything I'd wanted to get away from my whole life.” He gave her a lopsided smile that melted her heart. “Must be love, Gilly.” His expression turned grave, and he took her hands and held them between his, massaging them as he spoke. “I never meant to hurt you, Gilly, least of all at the Lawrences’ bash or at your publishing party. But my father pulled another rug out from under me financially when we had another knock-down-drag-out over me wanting to join the D.A.'s staff instead of a prestige law firm. I was in a bind.”
“I can imagine what you must've thought when you saw me in the audience at the publishing party. Oh, Jeff, I told you the same lies I told everyone here, inventing the perfect family, the perfect hometown, the job I always dreamed of. All so I could keep the real past, and how bad it made me feel, at a distance. The only thing I told you the truth about was Mrs. Kleinschmidt. Can you forgive me?”
“Gilly, when you look at me with those big green eyes, I can barely remember what my name is, much less hold a grudge. I'm glad you aren't high society, but I'd love you even if you were. I did love you, but I was too wrapped up in my own guilt to realize it until I thought I'd lost you for good. If seeing me like you did at that party...if you can forgive me for that—”
“Shh,” she said, touching his lips with her fingertips as she knelt between his thighs. “I'm glad you aren't high society anymore either, but I'd love you even if you were. I'll be more than happy to settle for an assistant D.A., if you'll settle for a romance editor.”
“Why not? That way, a happy ending is guaranteed,” he whispered, reaching down to pull her into his arms.
Chapter Ten
Jeff just held her close to him, inhaling the sweet vanilla scent that was Gilly—soft, warm, vulnerable. She had been hurt so much in her life already, and he vowed that she never would be again. His hands slowly traveled down the back of the fluffy yellow robe, feeling the delicate indentations of her spine, the delicious curve of her buttocks. He lifted her up against him, kneading her soft flesh, listening to her sigh of contentment.
Gilly raised her arms, encircling his neck, pulling him closer to her as he lifted her. Their mouths met in a light, brushing kiss that built slowly. She traced the sculpted contours of his lips with her tongue, flicking it into one corner, then the other, loving it when he growled low and opened his mouth. She received his tongue, matching him thrust for thrust until they were both breathless.
His fingers splayed over her back, then moved up to her head, framing her face as he kissed her eyelids, nose, cheekbones, and temples tenderly while he pulled her up on the sofa to lie on top of him. He massaged her scalp, taking the pins from her hair so that it fell in a coppery curtain, veiling them. “You have such beautiful hair,” he murmured against her throat, lapping with his tongue at the furiously beating pulse point between her collarbones.
She chuckled low. “So do you. I like being able to grab hold.” She demonstrated, taking a fistful of his dark hair in each hand and pressing a deep, sealing kiss on his open mouth.
“Ravish me,” he whispered.
“Like in a romance novel?” Her voice was muffled in his mouth.
“Yeah, just like.”
“How would you know? Ever read one?” she asked between kisses.
“You can show me.”
She propped herself up on his chest and lo
oked down, loving the game. “Well, first I think we'll have to begin with ‘divesting me of my garments.’ ”
“My pleasure,” he replied, rolling up and flipping her down on the opposite end of the big sofa. “Am I allowed to ad-lib now and then?”
“Absolutely. But I reserve the right to 'edit'.” As she spoke he slowly untied the sash of her robe and pushed the heavy lapels back, revealing the swells of her breasts. The cool air instantly contracted the nipples, which ached for his touch.
She arched them toward him, saying, “Now, you'll have to ‘tease my twin peaks of desire with your scorching lips’.”
He swooped down and did exactly that, eliciting a sharp gasp of pleasure from her. “I never thought I'd owe so much to Gwendolyn Gleeson,” she murmured while he kissed his way across her collarbone and down each arm as he freed it from the robe.
She looked up at him, straddling her hips, then let her hands glide sinuously up his thighs until she reached the edge of his sweater. She started to raise it, but he quickly reached up and yanked it over his head and threw it to the floor. “No fair. The heroine gets to undress the hero, too.”
“Sorry. What next?” he asked, looking down expectantly to where her hands rested on the waistband of his jeans.
“Not so obvious,” she murmured, letting her fingernails graze his belly as she ran her hands up over the contours of his chest, tracing the patterns of body hair, then circling two hard dark male nipples. It was his turn to gasp with pleasure. Her fingertips feathered around to his back, then returned again to the snap on his jeans. She hesitated, licking her lips, then smiled seductively and began to lower the zipper. “I seem to remember...” Her hands slowed, stopped, raised the zipper, then lowered it again. “Think I'll suggest that trick to Gwendolyn.”