Hot Touch

by Deborah Smith

  “Blue’s a practical man. Surely you’ve noticed.”

  “But he’s also the most vital, vibrant man I’ve ever known. And he’s waiting for someone special.”

  “He’s lonely and he needs help running this place. He loves children and he wants to start a family before he gets much older.” Angelique slugged down her milk as if it were a fortifying shot of brandy. “Those considerations are more important than grand passion, and he knows it.”

  Grasping the edge of the table with a fierceness that made her fingers hurt, Caroline asked, “So why are you worried about me? I’m no competition for you in the race for domestic bliss.”

  “That’s right. All you can do is take him to bed, confuse him, hurt him.”

  “You don’t know him as well as you think, or you wouldn’t underestimate his scruples and self-control.”

  Angelique stood, and her eyes glittered with warning. “I don’t underestimate him. But I wonder what kind of woman you are, and what you’ve already done to provoke him.”

  Caroline clasped her chest dramatically. “Ah. I’m the sleazy Hollywood type on the hunt for instant gratification, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m from Beverly Hills. It’s a higher level of sleaze.”

  “Leave him alone!”

  Caroline stood as well, drained her milk jauntily, thumped the glass down, and gave Angelique a proud look. “I intend to, but I’m not going to let you turn him into Ward Cleaver.”

  Angelique interpreted the reference correctly and rolled her eyes. “I’ll take that challenge.” She stuck out her hand. “This is war, sleazy.”

  Caroline stared at her for a moment, then smiled thinly. The little darling had guts, and she admired that. “War, June.”

  They shook hands.

  Paul watched Angelique with worried eyes as she bustled around the kitchen, a checkered apron over her ruffled gingham dress. She looked cute, fluffy, and ready for a square dance. That struck him as a tad odd. It was only seven A.M.

  “Since when do you like to cook big breakfasts, Angie? I remember you telling Chris that they were bad for his figure.”

  He spoke to her in French, though it was a colorful Cajun dialect that a Paris native would barely comprehend. She answered the same way, her voice lilting and sweet. “I know how much you like omelets, so I thought this once wouldn’t hurt. Besides, it’s okay for a man to put on a little weight when he gets older.”

  Mark wiggled atop his makeshift child’s seat, a stack of veterinary books Paul had placed in his chair. “Look, Maman. Kitties!”

  All four of Paul’s enormous cats had leapt to the open window above the sink. They lounged on the sill, gazing hungrily at a ceramic bowl full of omelet mix and sniffing toward the sweet scent of beignets baking in the oven.

  “Mornin’, purrs,” Paul told them amicably.

  He glimpsed Angelique as she frowned. She hadn’t allowed animals in her and Chris’s home, Paul recalled. It was one of many small but disturbing things he kept remembering about her. Why? Why in hell did Angelique, one of his oldest and dearest friends, make him feel suffocated now?

  “Shoo!” She picked up a glass of water and tossed it at them before Paul could protest. The cats jackknifed like addled crawfish, but instead of fleeing they bolted onto the kitchen counter.

  Tabby slammed into the omelet mix and sent the bowl crashing into the sink, while White Kitty galloped across a pan full of beignets that sat cooling on the stovetop.

  Angelique grasped her throat in horror. “They’re crazy!”

  Paul vaulted to his feet, gazing at his normally sedate cats with astonishment and a guilty desire to laugh. He spread his arms grandly and yelled, “Scram, purrs!”

  His booming voice caused Orange to do a major-league slide into a pitcher of grapefruit juice. It sailed off the kitchen counter, and Orange followed it in a bellyflop that ended atop Wolf, who’d been lying on the floor by Mark’s chair.

  Wolf jumped up, stepped into a puddle of juice, and did an undignified split. He scrambled to a corner, threw his head back, and barked at Orange nonstop, sounding more like his retriever mother than his wolf father.

  Blackie leapt for the table edge, caught the yellow and white tablecloth Angelique had put out specially, and hung there in cartoonish dismay showing only eyes, ears, and paws.

  Paul stared at him as he slowly sank out of sight, dragging the tablecloth with him. Despite the carnage, the slapstick was too funny to resist. Paul began to laugh.

  “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks.”

  Mark squealed with delight while his mother chased cats with a dishcloth. The door to Caroline’s room opened and she stepped out, radiating trendy elegance in a green sundress with matching sunglasses and high-heeled granny boots.

  She’d plaited her red-gold hair atop her head and wound a green scarf through the braids. Her wide pewter necklace and bracelet were inset with faux emeralds the size of quarters.

  Paul inhaled sharply. This was the woman who ought to look foreign to him, yet he craved the sight of her. The cats crashed to a stop around her feet.

  “Good morning,” she told the disheveled felines cheerfully. “It’s the fab four, or would that be the kamikaze kids?”

  “Out! Get them out of here!” Angelique told Paul.

  He was lost in looking at Caroline and trying to piece together answers to questions he hadn’t fully formed yet. There was something odd about her lack of surprise over the scene outside her room. She smiled tolerantly at the cats, grinned at Mark, then smiled at Angelique and received a curt glare in response.

  She made a lighthearted kissing gesture at him as she glided through the mess and out the door to the main hallway.

  Wolf and all four cats trotted after her calmly, tails up.

  Mark slapped both hands over his mouth and giggled. “I know a secret,” he announced again.

  It was difficult not to like a person who remained so cheerful despite being attacked by cats, ducks, and squirrels.

  Caroline scowled as she sat down under a tree and waited to put Wolf through his paces in the next scene. Thankfully the hubbub of the set distracted everyone from noticing her. She needed a minute to keep reminding herself that she was trying to drive Angelique away only for Paul’s sake.

  The ducks had been a grand ploy, even better than the attack cats at breakfast, but not, Caroline thought happily, as good as the squirrels who dropped nuts on Angelique’s head during her picnic lunch with Paul. The woman was trying to feed him into a stupor.

  Caroline smiled wickedly. Angelique hadn’t crossed paths with the llamas yet.

  “Caroline.”

  Paul’s voice made her jump. Feeling a little guilty, Caroline tilted her head back and squinted up at more than six feet of incredibly provocative masculinity in a white polo shirt, comfortable-looking tan trousers, and loafers. From that angle he made her feel even more overwhelmed than usual.

  “Clean and nicely dressed again,” she teased awkwardly. “Twice in three weeks. Is this a record?”

  He dropped to his heels beside her and studied her with narrowed eyes, his expression stern.

  As always, the sudden closeness of those searing blue eyes and his expressive, offbeat features made her feel giddy inside. How could she ever describe him to anyone and do him justice?

  His nose is a little big and his hair’s two inches too long in back. Mother Nature gave him the kind of strong features that belong on an old Roman coin. He’s not the least bit pretty. But he’s the sexiest man in this universe.

  “Yes?” she inquired politely.

  “Mark keeps saying that you told him secrets. Angie is kind of upset because he won’t say what they are. Do you know what he’s talkin’ about?”

  Giddiness turned to anxiety. She didn’t want to call Mark an overimaginative little boy again; it wasn’t fair to put that onus on him. “Angelique doesn’t like me, and she just doesn’t want me to talk to him.”

  “Angi
e’s not suspicious or petty. Why wouldn’t she like you?”

  Caroline winced. It was true—Angelique didn’t seem like the vindictive sort. She wasn’t the kind of woman who would, for example, tell squirrels to drop nuts on another woman.

  Honesty was the antidote for guilt. “She thinks I’m chasing you, doc.”

  A slow look of surprise crept into his expression. “She said so?”

  “Yes. And I told her that I wasn’t.”

  His mouth thinned. “Thanks.”

  “But I didn’t give her carte blanche to turn you into a couch potato either.”

  He tilted his head to one side and looked bewildered. “What?”

  Caroline put a reassuring hand on his forearm. The thick, corded muscles flexed at her touch; the black hair was smooth and soft in contrast. Even that innocent contact seemed to electrify the air between them. A primitive awareness flickered in his eyes.

  She pretended not to notice. “Don’t get involved with her a second time, doc. Let her remember how good the past was, but don’t promise her the future.”

  His voice was gruff. “Why?”

  “Would you kiss her the way you’ve kissed me—like you wanted sex and danger and affection all rolled into one? Be honest, now. I won’t use it against you.”

  Even his deep olive skin was capable of blushing, she noticed. It was endearing to see that a man with so much self-confidence could react this way. But he didn’t look embarrassed, just caught.

  “You’ve got a way of puttin’ things, chère.”

  “Well? Would you?”

  “All right. No.”

  Caroline quivered inside. His skin was growing hot under her fingers. “Then you don’t want to marry her. I know she’s a bundle of sweetness and compatibility, but she’ll either tame you or bore you—either way it wouldn’t be very good.”

  “And who would be good for me, huh?” he asked grimly.

  “Find someone who appreciates you for what you are.” She smiled to diffuse the tension. “A wild and exasperating pain in the butt.”

  He looked at her sardonically. “Hey, don’t let anyone ever tell you that you don’t know how to compliment a man.”

  “I mean it, Blue. Don’t let your domestic urges fool you. You may be a practical man, but you don’t want a practical marriage.”

  He was beginning to get angry; she could see it in the tightening of his jaw. “You’re damned arrogant to coach me on how to have a happy love life.”

  “I’m an expert on unhappy love lives.”

  “I think it’s your one talent,” he retorted. The stricken look on her face made him curse darkly. His voice softened with apology. “Just mind your own business, Caroline.”

  “Okay. I deserved that.” She dropped her grip on his arm and looked away, trying desperately to hide her distress.

  He clamped one big hand onto her shoulder, shook her slightly, and muttered in a troubled tone, “What you need is the right man to carry you off someplace and make love to you until you can’t think about anything but him.”

  Caroline almost blurted out that she thought a certain Cajun hellion was the only man capable of doing that job. She bit the words back and said instead, “Write me up a prescription, doc. I’ll try to get it filled.”

  He smiled wearily at her joke and left her sitting there, her hands curled limply in her lap, her face flushed, her eyes following him with desperate devotion.

  The last thing Caroline wanted to do was get any of the animals in trouble, and especially not Wolf. But in the end, Wolf’s own intuition ruined her plan.

  Angelique spent the afternoon on the perimeter of the set, where Caroline would be sure to see her. She carried a camera and gathered pictures—pictures of Paul with Mark in his arms, Paul kneeling beside Wolf, Paul with the actors, and, each time she could snare a passerby to do the honors, Paul with Angelique.

  Caroline gritted her teeth and guided Wolf through his last scene. Frederick lay on the ground, ailing from some mysterious malady only the film’s scriptwriters understood. Wolf lay beside him, looking woebegone and licking Frederick’s cosmetically grizzled face.

  Considering Wolf’s dislike for Frederick and vice versa, they were both consummate professionals, Caroline thought.

  The scene went beautifully. Everyone cheered when the director called, “That’s like, a take, you know. Let’s chill out for the day. No work tomorrow. Like have a great Sunday, okay?”

  Caroline looked off the set, hoping to see Paul’s approval, and instead found him posing with Mark, Angelique, and Frank while a makeup woman snapped their picture.

  The woman set the camera down on a folding chair and went to degrizzle Frederick. Angelique grasped Frank’s hands and engaged him in a conversation that made him smile. Paul listened over her shoulder, and he smiled.

  Caroline squinted at the happy scene in dismay. Dammit, all this sweetness was too much. Frank hardly ever smiled.

  Wolf brushed past Caroline’s knees at a lope. He barely paused as he snatched Angelique’s camera into his mouth. When Paul whistled for him to return, he kept going, straight for the woods, where he disappeared without looking back.

  Caroline took one look at the anger in Paul’s eyes and knew that Wolf wouldn’t go unpunished. Not that Paul would hit him; he never laid a hand on any of the animals at Grande Rivage, no matter how ornery.

  A zebra had told her that.

  Her stomach knotting, Caroline ran to Paul’s group. Angelique had a why-me-Lord? expression on her face. Frank was nonplussed—nothing Wolf did surprised him anymore. Mark gazed at everyone with a child’s fascination for impending trouble between adults.

  “I’ll get your camera back,” Caroline assured Angelique.

  Paul turned toward her and asked with grim accusation, “Why, did you tell Wolf to take it?”

  Caroline stared at him in astonishment. “You think I …” Wolf had only been reacting to her disgust for the camera. She couldn’t blame him. “It was a joke, Paul.”

  “You wanted to hurt Angelique.”

  “No.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t act sorry. You’re not.”

  She felt his disappointment so keenly that she didn’t care that Angelique was watching with a prim, victorious smile.

  Caroline wavered. “It was a thoughtless joke.”

  Paul scowled at her. “I never knew you could be petty or mean,” he said in a carefully controlled voice. “Until now. You owe Angie an apology.”

  His words cut into her as nothing had in years, but she faced Angelique with quiet honor. “I apologize. It was a poor joke.”

  “It wasn’t a joke, Caroline,” Paul insisted. “And you know it.”

  “Oh, Blue, I’m sure she was just trying to show off Wolfs training,” Angelique said in a magnanimous tone.

  Paul’s harsh gaze never left Caroline’s contrite one. “No, Angie, you don’t understand. Caroline enjoys making fun of other people. Especially people who’re different from her. You can’t be nice to her, ’cause she doesn’t know how to return it.”

  “I, uhmm, I’ll go get Wolf,” Caroline murmured, knowing that her rigid facial muscles couldn’t stand the strain of holding back her misery much longer. She deserved his anger, but he had no idea how defeated and alone it made her feel.

  He was wrong in his assessment of her motives, but telling him so would sound only like a whimpering excuse at this point. Besides, he’d probably marry Angelique and be happy in a way she’d envy, even if it were only a modest happiness.

  “You move out of my house,” he added softly. “Tonight. Frank’ll have to find you someplace else to stay.”

  Caroline couldn’t drag a response from her throat without crying, so she simply nodded.

  “I think you’re teaching Wolf things that can only get him in trouble. He’s working fine now. You can go back to California. Tomorrow.”

  “Paul, now, wait a minute,” Frank interjected somberly.

  Caroline swallo
wed hard and knew that Paul watched every second of her effort. This last blow had destroyed her defenses. “I never had … a client like … Wolf before,” she managed to say in a choked, quivering voice that gave away all her desperation. “At least don’t take him away from me … please.”

  The anger wavered in his eyes, and they filled with a sheen of frustration and anguish. He looked down quickly, a muscle flexing in his jaw as he struggled to get his emotions under control.

  “All right,” he said between clenched teeth. “Just get your stuff out of my house. And keep away from Angie and Mark.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Angelique said.

  Caroline trembled with mortification. Nothing was worse than being defended by June Cleaver.

  “I like Caroline,” Mark interceded in a tearful voice. “She wouldn’t hurt anybody. She’s not mean. She even lets a granddaddy longlegs live in her room.”

  Caroline blinked rapidly and dug her fingernails into her palms. Oh, Mark, you sweetheart. If she stayed here another second she’d gush more water than a fire hydrant.

  “I’ll get Wolf.”

  “I want him chained up in one of the barns tonight,” Paul told her, his voice still soft with strain. “That way he’ll stay out of trouble until Angie and Mark leave tomorrow. Take him to Ed and tell him I said so.”

  “Have a heart, Paul,” Frank urged.

  “Stay out of this, ami. Run your movie and let me run my plantation.”

  “Please don’t chain Wolf up,” Caroline begged. She grasped Paul’s arm. “You’ll hurt him more than you’ll ever hurt me by doing that.”

  “How do you know?” he demanded hoarsely. “Eh? Just how do you know?”

  “She talks to the animals,” Mark said fervently. “Inside their heads.”

  “Mark, stop pretending!” Angelique ordered.

  Paul swiveled toward the child. “What do you mean, petit?”

  “Don’t chain Wolf up,” Caroline asked again. “I’ll keep him with me. What he did wasn’t his fault.”

  Distracted by her plea, Paul forgot his question to Angelique’s son. “Wolf knows better.” He slashed the air with one hand. “This crazy discussion is closed.”