by Melanie Rawn
“Explain yourself,” she said tightly.
“I just have to be sure you aren’t slumming,” he said, trying to sound offhand and failing. “That you haven’t lied to me about everything else.”
“I never lied to you about this or anything, and you know it.”
“You just kinda forgot to mention it.”
“Goddammit, I told you—”
“But what really pisses me off,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “is what’s really going on here. You punished me for what other men’ve done. If I fuck up, kick me in the ass, I’ll deserve it. But I won’t be lied to so you can make up for all the lies other men told you.” He sat back, studying her shocked face. At last he asked, “You gonna walk out on me now in a huff, or stay and have dinner?”
“You bastard,” she hissed.
They were distracted—fortunately—by the waiter’s arrival with pasta. They started eating, and after a while both had calmed down.
“All right,” Holly said suddenly. “Maybe I was punishing you for things that aren’t your fault. It’s been years since my profession wasn’t an issue. Every relationship I’ve had since I started getting paid good money has been pretty much the same. Lousy taste in men, right?”
“Present company excepted.” He swallowed wine and leaned back in his chair again.
“Suze was the one who thought we should meet. It wasn’t my idea.” She couldn’t stop a little smile from touching her mouth. “Thirty seconds, Holly — I bet it’s not more than thirty seconds before you waut to rip his clothes off!” Banishing the memory, she went on lightly, “And I was the one who told her to go for it with Elias. Looks like we’re better at picking men for each other than for ourselves.”
“Looks like,” he agreed laconically.
Holly took a deep breath. “Evan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lie to you. I’ve told you why I didn’t say anything.” And she’d apologized for this three times now, which was twice more than her iron-clad limit.
He stayed silent for a minute, drank more wine, then shrugged. “Holly, I’m not sayin’ I’m exactly thrilled with all this. But I’m not a Neanderthal, either.”
He would have to be the one man not an anthropology major who actually pronounced it without the h. Just her luck.
“I’ve gone out with women who make more money than I do.”
He was trying. He really was. She appreciated that, and understood what it cost him. But it didn’t change things in the long run.
“Just not this much more,” she murmured to her wineglass. “It’s okay, Evan. Say good-bye nicely now, and bow out. I understand.”
“You understand jack shit. I got news for you, lady.” He reached across the tablecloth and circled her wrist with his fingers. “I’m not a total asshole. Just don’t throw the money in my face, don’t rub my nose in it, and I can handle it. Okay?”
She searched his eyes for a long moment, then sighed and turned her palm to fit into his. “You truly are a dangerous man, you know. You make me want to believe you so damned much.”
“I’ve never lied to you. Not once.”
She swallowed the implied rebuke—and it went down with surprising ease when he looked at her this way. Then his gaze dropped to their clasped hands, and for a moment she was lost in how his lashes lay thick and sooty on his cheeks. He had a trick of looking quickly away before briefly closing his eyes and then opening them to transfix his victim with a long, level, direct stare. Like a dragon was supposed to be able to do, she thought distractedly, as a tiny smile teased his lips before his gaze lifted and she was treated to the full power of those eyes. Yes, a dragon would have eyes like his: brilliant, inexorable … .
“So do the brave knight and the beautiful virgin ever get in the sack?”
This was so unexpected that she couldn’t help laughing. “You would ask that! It’s the way I said—I don’t know if this will be anything more than a short story.”
“Make it a novel,” he advised. “A long one. With sequels.” The dragon’s eyes suddenly kindled with golden glints that could mean anger or amusement but right now meant forthright lust. “I can help with the research.”
Holly arched her brows. “I’m guessing you heard what I told the group today, but it’s worth repeating. I’m no sixteen-year-old virgin, and you’re no White Knight, a chuisle.”
The Irish endearment threw him. It showed in his startled eyes. She’d been saving it for a tender moment, the sweet and slurring ala-koush-lah, but tonight it just slipped out. Not exactly the most romantic timing … . Still, what he said next surprised her completely, as did the dark, faraway look in his eyes.
“I haven’t heard that since—Granna Maureen used to call Granddad that.” He shook his head as if trying to shake off a memory. “I told you about her — she was born in the Old Country, kept the accent and even spoke Gaelic sometimes. Granddad married her when she was seventeen, a year off the boat.”
“Were they happy?”
“For sixty-three years.” He hesitated, his hand suddenly rigid and cold in hers. His eyes were lightless, his mouth thin, his voice sharp and bitter. “If I’d never known them, I’d never’ve known that not all husbands hit their wives, and not all wives drank themselves comatose by four in the afternoon —”
“Éimhín — !” He’d never said a word about it, never hinted —
“Long time ago. Doesn’t matter.”
Ah, but it did. And she understood all at once why the danger in him was so tightly leashed. Abuse cycled from generation to generation, and this man was terrified of becoming his parents. She held his hand until it warmed in hers. He managed a rueful smile and poured more wine for them both.
They talked of other things, enjoying each other as they always did. At last, over espresso and biscotti, she said, “Evan, I promise I won’t throw the money in your face. But you have to promise me something, too.”
“Yeah?” he asked warily.
“Please, pretty please —” She folded her hands together in fervent prayer. “Let me buy you just one pair of shoes that aren’t those damned cowboy boots!”
AT HIS FIRST SIGHT OF her apartment, his heart sank to his ankles. It wasn’t just one floor in the corner of the building but two, with a graceful half-circle staircase rising from a marble-tiled foyer. The banister was warm red oak, the carpet white Berber, both recognized from lab samples—and couldn’t he shut off being a cop for just ten minutes, and look at her place without what he knew damned well were defense mechanisms? But she was nervous, too — she couldn’t even look at him. Her cheeks were bright red, and not from the cold outside.
“Living room,” she began, leading him from the foyer into a darkened space illumined an instant later by automatic sensors. He blinked a little; the room was bigger than his whole apartment. Beyond the windows, each hung with a small swirly glass sphere to catch the sunshine, were the fairy-castle lights of buildings on the other side of the Park. He glanced at the view, then around the room. Dark green leather furniture, big coffee table of wood and wrought iron, paintings—he recognized the Grand Canyon, Yosemite Valley, Il Duomo in Florence, and a ramshackle cottage amid hills so green, they had to be in Ireland, but the other landscapes were unknown to him. An unmirrored wet bar over in the far corner sparkled with crystal stemware and liquor bottles in glass-fronted cabinets. His shoes sank soundlessly into a superb dark crimson Persian rug as he followed her across the room to the bar.
“What can I pour you? Scotch? Brandy?”
“Brandy.”
She selected big balloon snifters and a decanter of amber liquid that was probably twice as old as he was. He swirled it in his glass, inhaling, before taking a sip. “This is good. No balcony?”
“I’m terrified of heights,” she explained with a self-deprecating shrug. “This is the only apartment of this size in the building that doesn’t have one. Do you want to see the rest, or just sit and talk for a while?”
“Might as well get it over
with,” he said, and could have kicked himself for the flinch that crossed her face.
Her reply was grim. “Come on, then.”
She took him on the grand tour. Elegant white-and-silver powder room off the foyer. Kitchen with lots of copper and Italian plates; formal dining room with a suite of old mahogany furniture and a display of chipped, mismatched milk pitchers. Comfy and homey as it was, he was willing to bet that she rarely used this room, eating instead at the kitchen table or in front of the TV.
Back to the hall, and thence to her office—the Show Office, she termed it—with framed book covers, photos of her with people he didn’t know, her undergraduate and graduate degrees, awards (“My ego wall,” she said dismissively); two walls of books and one of windows; carved wooden desk; big brown suede sofa in front of the wide-screen TV and stereo system.
Where she actually worked was a small room next door—and he tried not to stare. Nothing was dirty, but everything was a mess. Papers, books, magazines, letters, folders, manila envelopes, empty coffee mugs, tins of chocolate-covered espresso beans for caffeine fixes. A massive partners desk took up most of the space, its scarred wooden top cluttered with computer, laptop, disks, CDs, manuscripts, printer—
“My housekeeper is forbidden even to enter this room. If Isabella cleaned it up, I’d never find anything.”
How she found her own nose in this chaos was beyond his comprehension. He was compulsively neat, a habit pounded into him by his mother. Whatever else Patricia Lachlan had been, whatever else could be said of her, she had kept a spotless house. Nobody could ever believe that such a meticulous homemaker was a drunk.
Lachlan dismissed his memories as not belonging here any more than his work did, and followed Holly into the bedroom. Not the way he might have planned it—she stalked ahead of him, her movements still stiff with tension, and he tagged along feeling distinctly unwelcome.
“Isabella’s day off,” she said, picking up a sweater from the floor. She looked around for somewhere to put it—but chaise, ottoman, bed, and dressing table were all covered in clothes and more books. She shrugged and dropped the sweater back where it had been.
It had taken her a single day without a housekeeper to create this havoc? As she slid off her heels and lobbed them in the general direction of the huge walkin closet, he found it easy to believe it had taken her a single hour.
Tidied up, it would be a nice room. A little countrified for his tastes, but nice. Wrought-iron bedstead, oak furniture, colorful handmade quilt, incredible cityscape view. The chaise—what he could see of it beneath clothes, an afghan, and yet more books—was a dark green that matched the brocade drapes. The hardwood floor was partly covered by a braided rag rug. Photos decorated one wall—her parents’ wedding picture, obviously, and other people from much earlier times.
“That’s quite a collection,” Lachlan said, just for something to say. “Your mother’s beautiful.”
“Yes, she was. I don’t remember my parents. They were killed when I was two years old.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, meaning it.
“Aunt Lulah raised me — my father’s sister and Mama’s best friend. Papa edited and published the local paper. Mama wrote articles and sold ad space — a real two-mule farm operation, and guess who the mules were.”
“The partners desk was theirs, right?”
She glanced at him in surprise. “Yes.”
“What happened?”
Square shoulders lifted in a little shrug. “He wrote one too many editorials, and she wrote one too many articles, and they both were in one too many marches, in support of the Civil Rights Movement. At least, that’s how we understand it. Nobody ever proved anything. They were in Alabama for an NAACP conference and their car went off a bridge. When word came, our local Klan threw a party.”
She spoke matter-of-factly, but he could hear the hurt in her voice. He wanted to touch her, just to let her know he was there. But she was gesturing to the rest of the photos.
“Meet four generations of McClures, Flynns, Kirbys, McNichols, Coxes, Bellews, and Sherers.”
“Sure, and nary a sasseenach somewhere in t‘family tree?” he teased in his grandmother’s Irish accent. “Get on w’ye!”
Her chuckle was unwilling, but she replied easily enough, “Well … a few French and Welsh, plus an early Virginia cattle rancher named Domingo Madeiras, who was probably a Portuguese Jew forced to convert by the Inquisition. Even a Cherokee lady—but they lied up hill and down dale about that, of course, or it would’ve been a one-way ticket to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.” She paused, as if having caught herself responding to him, and resumed more formally, “Nobody knows why our McClures left Ireland so early, but there are rumors of everything from murdered landlords to horse-thieving.” She traced a fingertip over the small brass heraldic crest on one of the frames. “We’re a sept of Clan MacLeod, from the Isle of Skye. Our branch imported itself to Ireland long ago, when Scotland and Ireland were still politically united.”
Evidently when she felt threatened, she went into lecture mode. An interesting defense, and wholly appropriate to someone who lived by words. But he also understood that she was trying to reestablish common ground, back to their very first conversations.
“The two kingdoms of Dalriada,” he said quietly. “I know my Irish history.” He inspected the MacLeod crest, which featured a bull’s head and the motto Hold Fast. Resisting the impulse to point at it and say, “Gee, ya think?”, he remarked, “The MacLaughlins are nobody’s sept.”
“Why do you use the Scots spelling, by the way?”
“Smart immigrant. After two weeks in Boston she made her husband change ‘O’Laughlin’ to ‘Lachlan’. She wanted to raise the kids Presbyterian, but he drew the line and we stayed Catholic.”
“I wondered how somebody named Evan Lachlan could have a map of County Donegal on his face.” After a second’s hesitation, she said, “Did you know that the last Witch to be hanged in Scotland was Elspeth MacEwan of Clan MacLachlan?”
“You do your research, lady.”
“It’s my job.” And with mention of that point of contention, her smile died. He wasn’t surprised when she sought refuge again in words. “That’s Richard McClure at age ninety-three,” she said, pointing to a photo of a silver-haired man whose nose had been broken more than once, judging by its bumps and turns. His eyes were beautiful, though—like Holly’s eyes, large and luminous, and even though it was a sepia-toned photograph Evan knew the deep blue had blazed like sapphires in sunlight. “There wasn’t anything for him to inherit, so he made his way through the South as a prizefighter. He must’ve been pretty good at it, too, because he ended up with quite a plantation before the Civil War. After was a different story, but —”
Lachlan decided that as interesting as all this might be, he was tired of being lectured to. “So the McClures came over on the Mayflower, huh?” As she threw him an annoyed scowl, he pretended to remember. “Oh, that’s right—that was the Puritans. No Irish Need Apply.”
Through gritted teeth she said, “If you must know, the McClures got to Virginia in 1623, and the Flynns in 1625.”
“Over two hundred years before the Lachlans and Coyles got to New York.”
“When did this turn into a dick contest to see who’s more Irish?”
“Take it easy. It was just a comment.” But he couldn’t shut his mouth over the next words: “Betcha you can trace your line all the way back to Brian Boru.”
Holly glared up at him, having to tilt her head back now that she was without shoes. “As a matter of fact, yes. So can half Ireland. So fucking what?”
Before he could reply, she stalked out of the bedroom and into the hallway. He followed her upstairs to the second floor. Without the heels, she was half a foot shorter than he—and he discovered he rather liked it when she was smaller, somehow less formidable. On the other hand, he also liked being with a woman who could damned near stare him straight in the eye, and was strong enough to g
ive him a rousing tussle in bed when they both felt like it.
It was very confusing. He had learned recently that a lot about her confused him. She could fascinate him with wry stories or serious conversation; she could bed him in any mood from laughing greed to shy sweetness; she could wake up growly and curt or cuddly and playful; she could look like a little girl with her hair in pigtails, or incite him to near-rape with a silk dress and pearls.
She could live in a place like this, and be as rich and well-known as she was, and probably have twenty men beating down her door — and still want him. Insecurity was not one of his failings, and he knew it, and the reason he was feeling it wasn’t her fault—he was fair enough to admit that. All the same … .
Upstairs, one room contained filing cabinets and the overflow books. Another was supposed to be a family room, with fireplace; two bedrooms and shared bath were for guests; a second powder room was at the end of the hall. Counting the baths, she had fourteen rooms here—six of which it appeared she didn’t visit very often. “You don’t use the upstairs at all?” he asked.
“Just for storage and guests.”
She took him back down to the living room, and after building a fire in the hearth she curled into the corner of a couch with her brandy in hand.
“So. That’s it, Evan. The whole show.”
He doubted it. There were things she hadn’t said about the furniture, things he recognized from cases having to do with the upper crust, or with antiques dealers. But he let that go. He ambled about the room, sipping brandy, glancing at the display of antique brass candlesticks on the mantelpiece, the glass-fronted cabinet full of porcelain this and pewter that, the books on art and travel and castles piled on the end tables.
“Where’s the cat?”
“How did you know I have a cat?”
“Book cover.”
“Oh. Mugger’s probably hiding someplace. I imagine once he heard another voice besides mine, he made a run for it. He’ll make an appearance eventually.” She finished her brandy and set the glass down. “You still haven’t said what you think of the place.”