by Sandra Brown
He pushed his upper body away from the wall, but the other man’s laughter halted him. “Good luck, buddy.”
“You sound as though you think I’ll need it.”
“You couldn’t touch her with a ten-foot pole.”
“I don’t want to touch her with a ten-foot pole. I want to take her to bed.”
The other man started with surprise. He’d never heard his friend say anything so bold. Oh, he would talk man talk, all right, swap bawdy stories. But his tales were always about somebody else. He kept his private life to himself. He didn’t have to toot his own horn. His success rate was well known around town.
He recovered from his surprise. “I know that your track record with women is impressive. But it ain’t gonna happen this time.”
“What makes you think so?”
“From what I hear, Sunny is a real ball-breaker. She doesn’t have anything whatsoever to do with men. Turns ’em to stone like that gal in Greek mythology.”
Rather than deterring the man, that piece of information only served to pique his curiosity more. He always welcomed a challenge. His eyes narrowed as he continued to stare at her.
His cohort recognized that speculative look. “I know what you’re thinking. But you can’t thaw that one out.”
“Are you losing confidence in me?”
“Where Sunny Chandler is concerned I am.”
The sly grin was slow in coming. “What do you want to bet?”
“You mean it?” He got an affirmative nod. The man absently tugged on his earlobe as he contemplated the wager. “I had a hankering for a new fly-casting rod, but Wanda cracked a crown and had to get a new one. What dentists charge for those things these days—”
“A new fly-casting rod it is. And you know how I like Wild Turkey. Shall we say a case of Wild Turkey against a new fly-casting rod?”
They shook hands solemnly. “She’ll hightail it back to New Orleans as soon as this wedding is over. You don’t have much time. One week from tonight.”
“I don’t need much time.” He moved away.
“Wait,” the other man said, detaining him a second time. “How’ll I know if you pull it off?”
“By the smile on her face.”
His smile had all the cunning of a fox and all the honesty of a Boy Scout. Piratical mischief and angelic sincerity exuded from that smile. That self-confident grin could either make you melt or shiver, depending upon your point of view. Sunny did a little of both when she met it seconds later.
At the tap on her shoulder, she turned around, confronting a red necktie with thin blue stripes resting against a dove-gray shirt. She followed the necktie up to that devastating smile.
Her heart skipped a beat or two. Her stomach seemed to free-fall for a long time before crash landing. Her mouth went as dry as the Sahara. But she kept her features cool and remote as she took in the streaked blond hair, Nordic blue eyes, suntanned face, and tall, muscular frame. She recognized him as the man who had laughed out loud so rudely.
His packaging was prettier than most. So? She knew the type. She recognized that kind of smile. He was all but licking his chops, thinking that he’d spotted a tasty morsel. Well, he’d find out soon enough that she was more vinegar than honey.
“I like the way you eat strawberries.”
That wasn’t exactly the opening line Sunny had expected. At least she gave him credit for originality. Cerebrally she could acknowledge his cleverness and pass it off. Physically it wasn’t so easy to dismiss.
Her tummy fluttered and slipped a little lower. That leading line of so few words told her several things at once. That he’d been watching her for some time. That he liked what he saw. That he was interested enough to take a closer look.
Flattering? Yes. Had she been any other woman, it might have worked for him. Instead she only stared back at him with a hauteur that would have discouraged a less determined man.
His sapphire gaze moved down to her mouth. “What else are you good at?”
“Fending off unwelcomed passes.”
He laughed. “And making witty comebacks.”
“Thank you.”
“Dance?”
“No, thank you.”
She tried to turn her back on him, but he touched her elbow. “Please?”
“No. Thank you.” She enunciated the words so that he couldn’t mistake the resolve behind them.
“How come?”
She didn’t want to embarrass Fran and Steve. Otherwise she would have reminded this glib, blue-eyed blond man with the to-die-for body and the crocodile grin that she owed him absolutely no explanation for not wanting to dance with him.
Instead she settled for, “I’ve danced too much already and my feet are hurting. Now, excuse me, please.”
She moved away, keeping her back to him. She stepped around the buffet and headed toward the round table in the center of the room, the one with the champagne fountain on it. She held a tulip glass under one of the spouts and filled it.
“I was taught in Sunday school that it’s a sin to lie.”
Champagne splashed over her hand as she spun around, making eye contact with that broad chest again. She seriously doubted that he’d ever been to Sunday school. And she was positive that the only thought he ever gave to sin was which one to commit next. “I was taught that it’s rude to make a pest of oneself.”
“You didn’t have to lie, you know.”
“I wasn’t lying.”
He made a tsking sound. “Now, Miss Chandler, I’ve been watching you for more than an hour, and you haven’t danced a single dance, though you’ve been invited to several times.”
Her cheeks went pink, but she was more annoyed than embarrassed. “Then that should have been your first clue. I don’t want to dance.”
“Why not just say so?”
“I just did.”
He laughed again. “I like your sense of humor.”
“I wasn’t trying to be amusing and couldn’t care less whether you like me, my sense of humor, the way I eat strawberries, or anything else.”
“You’ve made that clear enough, but, you see, that creates a bit of a problem for us.”
“How?” She was quickly losing patience and tiring of his game. If it hadn’t been for Mrs. Morris’s avaricious stare, she would have set down her champagne glass and stalked from the room, making her apologies to Fran and Steve later. “What problem could you and I possibly have in common?”
“See that man standing over there by that basket of roses?”
“Who? George Henderson?”
“You remember him?”
“Of course.” Sunny smiled and waved. Blushing to the roots of his thinning hair, George waved back.
“Well,” the stranger continued, “George and I just made a wager.”
“Oh?”
“He bet a new fly-casting rod against a case of Wild Turkey that I couldn’t get you into bed with me by the end of next week. Now, unless you care just a little bit whether I like you or not, it’s going to be damned hard for me to win my case of whiskey.”
He carefully removed the tilting champagne glass from her bloodless, nerveless fingers before it spilled. Setting it on the table first, he then pulled her into his arms and said, “Dance?”
The band was into the second verse of the song before Sunny could speak. “You are kidding, aren’t you?”
Butter would have melted beneath his smile. “Now, what do you think?”
She didn’t know what to think. She didn’t know a man with enough guts to admit making such a wager, if he’d had enough gall to make that kind of bet in the first place. Surely he was teasing her! Still, his smile wasn’t very reassuring.
She didn’t smile back. “What do I think? I think you don’t take no for an answer.”
“Not when I want something badly enough.”
“And you badly wanted to dance with me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“I’ve never
met a woman with golden eyes before.”
Those very eyes blinked up at him. “They’re not gold. They’re light brown.”
“I’d call them golden,” he replied stubbornly. “They match your name. Wonder how your mother knew ahead of time to name you Sunny?”
She quickly realized that George Henderson would have told him her name. No need for alarm there. But he couldn’t have determined the color of her eyes from across the room, and she pointed out that discrepancy to him. “So why did you want to dance with me?”
He drew her closer. “As I said, I like the way you eat chocolate-covered strawberries.” Eyes the color of a Scandinavian fjord looked down at her mouth again. “There’s a tiny speck of chocolate in the left corner of your lips.” Instinctively, Sunny made a point of the end of her tongue and searched out the particle. When it dissolved against her tongue, he said, “Got it.”
Sunny jerked herself out of the momentary trance he had miraculously induced. “I guess George told you everything about me.”
“Enough. But some things I want to find out for myself.”
“Like what?”
“What I want to know about you, Sunny, I don’t think you’d want me to find out here on the dance floor.”
She squirmed away from him and said frostily, “Thank you for the dance, Mr.—”
“Beaumont. Ty Beaumont. But you can’t stop dancing now. They’re already into another song.” He swung her into his arms again. When she would have struggled to extricate herself, he said, “Hi, Fran. Hi, Steve. Great party.”
“Hello, Ty,” they said in unison.
Sunny gave them a sickly smile as they danced past, then shot her partner a poisonous glance. He had her and he knew it. He wasn’t going to let her go without a fuss, and he knew that she wouldn’t risk making a scene.
But she’d be damned before she relaxed her body against his, the way his strong arms were dictating that she should. It was disconcerting enough just to be held this close. His thighs were hard as they moved against hers.
“Back to why I wanted to dance with you,” Ty said conversationally. “I like your golden hair, too.”
“Thank you.”
“Bet it looks sexy as hell spread out on a pillow.”
“You’ll never know.”
“I’ve already got one bet riding on that. Wanna make one between you and me?”
“No.”
“Good. Because you’d lose.”
“On the contrary, it would be a sure win, Mr. Beaumont. And please remove your hand.”
“From here?” He pressed the small of her back. There was an explosion of heat in Sunny’s lower body. She almost gasped at the shock of it, but caught herself just in time. She was afraid, however, that she hadn’t concealed her reaction from her partner, who was watching her closely. “Relax,” he told her.
“Forget it.”
“I don’t mean to be insulting.”
“Don’t you?”
“No. I just admire your figure.”
“Well, if you must, please admire it from afar.”
“I’d be the first one to jump to your defense if any other man held you this close. But since we’re going to be intimate, I—”
“We are not going to be intimate.”
He smiled knowingly.
Sunny’s stiff smile was strictly for the benefit of all the Mrs. Morrises crowding the room. She was not only annoyed but afraid. Ty Beaumont transmitted a masculine, animalistic vitality that beckoned to every female of the species. Sunny, for all her imperviousness where men were concerned, was still a female. Apparently she wasn’t as immune to pure sexual magnetism as she had thought. To keep herself from responding to it, it was mandatory to direct the conversation into safer channels.
“When did you move to Latham Green, Mr. Beaumont?”
“Make it Ty. Let’s see,” he said, wrinkling his forehead in concentration, “about three years ago. Guess we just missed each other.”
Sunny reasoned that George had told him when she had moved away. Before she could ask if George had told him the circumstances of her leaving he said, “In a room full of polyester, your silk really stands out.”
He rubbed his hand over her back. Reflexively she arched it. A wrong move. Because it caused her breasts to flatten against the solidity of his chest. The blue eyes grew dark and intense. Sunny sucked in her breath sharply.
“What do you do for a living?” she asked thinly.
“I’ll bet you wear silk undies, too.”
Suddenly Ty was holding nothing but air. Sunny was moving away from him, making quiet, unobtrusive apologies to the people she edged around on her way to the door. Because of his size, it was more difficult for Ty to cut and wend his way through the dancing couples. Sunny had reached the front steps of the country club’s colonial facade before he caught up with her.
“Was it something I said?”
She faced him like a spitting cat. “It was everything you said, everything you did. I despise that stupid, masculine superiority that you emanate like a bad odor. In fact, I wholly dislike every sexist thing about you, Mr. Beaumont. Now, leave me alone.”
“All right, look, I’m sorry, maybe I was coming on a little too strong.”
“A little too strong?”
“I saw you and I wanted to take you to bed. So—”
He was talking to her back again. He jogged down the steps to the gravel drive that was doing serious damage to Sunny’s pastel leather heels. He caught her arm; she wrested it free.
“If you get your kicks from talking dirty, Mr. Beaumont, I suggest you go to Bourbon Street. There are girls there you can pay by the minute to listen to that garbage. But please spare me from listening to it.”
“George gave me the impression that you’re not like the women around here.”
“Thank heaven for that.”
“You lead a single life in the city.”
“Right.”
“So I was just going straight to the heart of the matter. We’ve only got a week.”
“Of course. Why waste time?” she said, dripping sarcasm from every syllable.
“A sophisticated woman like you knows the score. I saw you, wanted you, I made my move. If I read you wrong, you have my sincerest apology. I wouldn’t want to offend you.”
“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”
“So, do we plan a roll in the sack for later in the week or not?”
She stared at him, momentarily speechless. But he looked like he actually expected an answer. Finally she said, “No, Mr. Beaumont, we do not.”
He grinned disarmingly. “Sure?”
She crossed her arms over her middle and assumed the aggravated stance and expression that had burst innumerable masculine egos. “Not unless hell freezes over, Mr. Beaumont.”
He wasn’t the least put off. Indeed, he moved closer, so close that she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. “Then you don’t play fair. You should have just come right out and told me that, Sunny,” he said in a throbbing voice, “instead of getting all warm and fluid while we were dancing.”
Sunny stared up at him with mortification, not only because his words were so provocative, but because they were so accurate. “I...you...I didn’t get warm an... an...and fluid.”
He peered at her from beneath a shelf of unruly dark blond brows. “You’ve already got one lie to your credit, Sunny. I wouldn’t go pushing my luck if I were you.”
“I’m not lying!”
His eyes slid down her middle. “Want me to prove it?”
She spun on her heels, which wasn’t too easy to do in the loose gravel, and stormed toward her car. Ty, grinning from ear to ear, watched her get into an American sports car and drive away as though the devil were after her. In essence that was exactly who was after her, Ty thought with a lecherous grin.
“I warned you you’d strike out,” George said, joining him under the porte cochere.
“This is just the f
irst inning, George. Don’t start making space above the mantel for all the fishing trophies you’re going to catch with that new rod,” Ty said confidently. “A lot can happen in a week.”
George seemed equally confident of Ty’s failure. “A week isn’t much time.”
In her car, Sunny was speeding down the highway. “A week!” she exclaimed. It would seem like an eternity.
Two
She had forgotten how hot the sun could be out on the lake. Fran and she had spent hours lying on beach towels spread out on this very pier, basted in suntan oil so thick they could trace the initials of their latest beaux on their thighs, bellies, chests.
How they had giggled! How catty they’d been, speculating if this girl really did, as everyone said she did, wondering if this boy was as good a kisser as his smug girlfriend claimed, weighing Warren Beatty’s merits against those of Paul Newman.
Everything had been such fun then. Growing up in a small town hadn’t been so disagreeable. Maybe that was the problem; she had simply outgrown the town. She was no longer a small-town girl. Now she belonged in the city.
New Orleans was a laid-back city in comparison with many others, but even at that, it couldn’t offer this sublime serenity. She’d forgotten how quiet the country could be. The hustle and bustle and clamorous noise of the city seemed far away. For at least today, she had nothing to do but lie here in the sun and soak up the silence and the glorious heat.
For most people the heavy, humid heat would be stifling. Sunny loved it. She welcomed its blanketing embrace. The sun’s rays seeped into her skin like mystical healing powers, inducing a delicious torpor, a state of utter laziness.
There was very little breeze, but occasionally a breath of it would stir the tops of the cypress trees lining the shore. On the horizon enormous white thunder-clouds were building up. They were empty threats of evening showers that rarely materialized. The lake was still, its surface glassy. Sunny liked the sound of the water lapping at the piling beneath the dock. Insects droned around her. Dragonflies skimmed the surface of the lake, sometimes rippling the water with their fragile, sheer wings.
Their buzzing sound, combined with the rhythmic, slapping sound of water against the piling, was hypnotic. She dozed.