The Thrill of Victory

by Sandra Brown

  "What's that?" Stevie asked, nodding at the room behind him.

  He pivoted on his heels. "That's a dining room with one card table, one folding chair and one portable typewriter in it." She gave him an inquiring look. "The dining-room furniture is now at my mother's house."

  "Oh." That wasn't the question Stevie had in mind, but she let his explanation pass for the time being. Apparently he had done some writing here. "Upstairs?"

  "Three bedrooms, one bathroom. There's also a powder room tucked behind the staircase if you're feeling the urge. No?" he said when she shook her head. "Then let's get these things into the kitchen."

  She followed him past a spacious living room.

  All the furniture was covered with dust cloths.

  They took a right turn at the end of the central hallway and entered the kitchen. Judd set the sacks of groceries on the round oak table.

  "This looks like a grandma's house," Stevie commented wistfully as she ran her hand over the carved back of one of the dining chairs. "I never got to know either set of my grandparents. They died before I could really remember them."

  "Whew!" Judd was at the refrigerator, lifting out something that was curled and black and, as a result, unidentifiable. He carried the foul-smelling thing at arm's length to the back door and threw it out. "Glad Grandma isn't here to see that. She'd have a fit."

  He opened the windows to let in fresh air while Stevie built them sandwiches out of the cold cuts and cheeses they had bought. As she was doing it, she felt one of the twinges in her lower abdomen that she had come to recognize, almost anticipate.

  Strange, though, she hadn't thought much about her illness since leaving Dallas. She guessed she had Judd Mackie to thank for diverting her mind.

  Only two days ago, she would have thought that if she were left alone with the columnist for any length of time, she would slowly strangle him and derive a great deal of pleasure from watching his eyeballs bulge out of his skull as she did.

  It was surprising that she found his droll sense of humor so comforting. He didn't mollycoddle or pity her, which she would have found untenable.

  He didn't play the clown, forcing laughter when it would have been inappropriate.

  She would never have guessed that getting along with him would be so effortless. He was being the friend she needed right now, entertaining, but easy to talk to. She was glad he had come along when she needed someone who was detached, objective and uncomplicated. But she would rather have her tongue cut out than tell him so.

  "Lunch is ready."

  He washed his hands, then joined her at the table. "Hey, this looks great," he said enthusiastically as he straddled the seat of his chair.

  Stevie took a bite of her sandwich. Through the mouthful, she asked, "What are we going to do after lunch?"

  And through his mouthful of sandwich, he replied, "Make love."

  Stevie swallowed her bite whole and gaped at Judd who calmly swallowed and blotted his mouth with a paper napkin. "Just a suggestion, of course," he said.

  In a flash, she was out of her chair and headed for the door. "I should have known better than to trust you, you… Oh! When I think how gullible I was to believe that you-Ouch!" As she sailed past his chair, he had reached out and grabbed the swishing end of her braid. Using it, he reeled her in. "Stop that!" she cried. "Let me go" 'Sit down." He tried to sound stern, but she saw that he was having difficulty keeping a straight face. "Can't you take a joke?"

  "That was a joke?"

  "Sure, what did you think? That I was serious?"

  "Of course not!" she snapped.

  "Well, then, why didn't you just laugh?"

  "It wasn't funny."

  "I thought so. But not near as funny as the expression on your face." He mimicked it, and if she had looked anywhere near that idiotic, she wanted to vaporize. "Kind of like you'd been hit in the face with-"

  "I get the picture," she interrupted crossly as she sat down and took a savage bite out of her sandwich. "It would have been in perfect character for you to lure me here under false pretenses, then try to seduce me."

  Rather than being insulted, he seemed flattered.

  "How do you know it would have been in character for me to seduce you?"

  "I said try to seduce me."

  "Okay. How do you know it would have been in character for me to try to seduce you?"

  "One hears things," she said snootily.

  "Oh, really? Like what? What have you heard about me?"

  "Never mind"

  'You're not referring to that story going around about me and the redheaded triplets, are you? Listen, that was a damn lie."

  "Triplets?" she repeated thinly.

  "They might be the most outstanding contortionists in the world, but even so…"

  She eyed him suspiciously. "Are you putting me on?"

  "Yeah, I'm putting you on." He resumed eating, but his smile remained insufferably complacent and amused. "Well, we know that Grandma's beds are safe from us, don't we?"

  "We certainly do."

  "I mean, when we kissed, nothing happened, right?"

  "R-right."

  "The earth didn't tremble, stars didn't pop out, fireworks didn't explode. I didn't feel much, did you?"

  "No."

  "No surge of lust."

  "Definitely not."

  He shrugged eloquently. "We tried it out and found it lacking, so you've got nothing to worry about. Now, back to your original question about what we're going to do this afternoon."

  Stevie barely listened. She had been relieved to know that he was teasing about an afternoon of lovemaking, but her ego was stung. Why had he found the possibility so absurd? When they kissed, hadn't he felt even slightly feverish? Lust was a strong word to describe the tingles she'd felt in all her erogenous zones when his tongue had softly engaged hers in a mating rite, but at least she'd tingled.

  He'd come away from the kiss totally unaffected.

  Was kissing her so unexciting that even a renowned and seemingly indiscriminate womanizer like him could come through it without feeling something?

  "… you don't have to.'' "Don't have to what?" she asked, realizing that he'd been talking all this time.

  "Don't have to help," he said, looking at her strangely. "Haven't you been listening?"

  "No. My mind was on something else."

  His brows frowned steeply. "You're not in pain, are you?"

  "No, nothing like that."

  "Good." He studied her for a moment as though he wasn't convinced that she was telling the truth. When he was satisfied, he summarized what he'd been saying earlier. "I've got some chores to do around here. While I'm at it, you can relax in one of the bedrooms upstairs."

  "I'd rather be outdoors. The woods are so pretty."

  "Suit yourself," he said, getting up out of his chair and carrying his empty plate to the sink.

  "There are books on the living-room shelves.

  Feel free to browse if you get bored."

  "Thanks."

  "I brought along some work clothes. As soon as I change, I'm going to start working outside.

  Holler if you need anything."

  "I will."

  He left the kitchen. Feeling slightly dejected and deserted, Stevie turned toward the sink.

  "Oh, Stevie?"

  "Yes?" she said, coming around quickly.

  He was peering around the edge of the door, only his head visible. "I felt a little surge of lust."

  Then, lightly slapping the doorjamb and giving her a quick wink, he vanished.

  Stevie muttered foul imprecations to the empty spot where his grinning face had been.

  "What the hell are you doing?"

  Stevie, sitting back on her heels in the dirt, glanced over her shoulder. She almost did a double take, but caught herself just in time.

  Judd was looming above her wearing nothing but a pair of dirty Levi's and a frown. In the couple of hours since she had seen him, he'd worked up a sweat. Little r
ivers of perspiration trickled through his plentiful chest hair. He was using a rake as a prop, one elbow resting atop the handle, his hip thrown off center.

  She could see straight up into his armpit, but it seemed an invasion of his privacy to stare at that as much as it did to visually track the beads of sweat sliding down the center of his belly into the low waistband of his jeans.

  Something sweet and elemental pierced through Stevie's femininity, reminding her of the twinges of pain she had been experiencing recently.

  But these were different. These twinges brought pleasure, not dread and doubt. But like the others, she pushed conscious thoughts of them aside because they left her feeling ambivalent and afraid.

  'What does it look like I'm doing? I'm weeding this flower bed." She turned back to the task that had hopelessly soiled her white culottes and caked her hands with fertile loam. She was sweaty. Her braid was lying heavily on her damp shirt, which was clinging to her back.

  She felt wonderful. It was as though this sweat was healthier than that which she worked up on the tennis court.

  "You're supposed to be relaxing," Judd told her.

  "This is relaxing. I enjoy tending to plants and these have been so badly neglected." She turned her head to give him a reproving look, but quickly glanced away. He was crouching behind her. Up close, his face was grimy, streaked with sweat, and more handsome than ever. She could smell his skin and knew that his lips would taste salty if he chose to kiss her just then.

  Swallowing hard, she said, "There's a pitcher of ice water on the porch."

  "Thanks." He eased up, groaning slightly when his knees popped, and moved up the steps to the porch. "These old bones needed the exercise, but I probably won't be able to get out of bed in the morning." He poured himself a glass of ice water. After he'd drained it, he asked,

  "Did you do something up here?"

  "I swept. The porch was littered with leaves and pine needles. It was a disgrace."

  "A regular little busy bee, aren't you?"

  "It feels good to be doing honest-to-goodness work. Besides, staying busy keeps my mind occupied."

  He loped down the steps and gave her long braid a playful yank. "Just don't wear yourself out."

  "I won't."

  "You look worn out."

  The sun had already slipped behind the tops of the trees, which in turn cast slanted shadows across the clearing in front of the house. Stevie was sprawled in a bench swing suspended from the branch of a mighty pecan tree. She was idly pushing the swing with her bare foot.

  Before she'd sat down in it, she'd hosed it off and swept cobwebs off the chains. They needed oil, but she rather liked the pleasant squeaking sound they made as they rocked forward and back. They were in harmony with the perpetual creaking of the windmill.

  The swing had been just one of the many projects she had assigned herself during the course of the afternoon while Judd nailed up dislocated shutters, used a weed sling on the clearing, and did some major cleanup around the barn and garage.

  Now, as he spoke his semi chastening statement, he dropped onto the ground in front of the swing and lay on his back in the recently mowed grass.

  He had put his shirt back on but left it unbuttoned.

  It fell open, baring his impressive chest and tantalizing stomach, which for all his carousing was flat and taut and lightly shadowed with dark hair. Stevie kept her eyes studiously averted, but it wasn't easy. It hadn't been easy to keep her eyes off him all afternoon.

  "I am tired," she conceded, "but deliciously so. I don't remember when I've watched the sun sinking behind leafy trees. The dappled light, the shadows, the shades of gold and green. It's all beautiful. And the sounds-rustling forest sounds that you never hear in the city. Yet it's quiet."

  He rolled to his side and rested his cheek in his palm as he gazed up at her. "Do you always rhapsodize?"

  "Only when I get this tired," she said with a smile, which he returned. "I enjoyed today. It's a shame we have to go back and inhale carbon monoxide and diesel exhaust instead of resin and wildflowers."

  "Do we?"

  She braked the swing with her heel and lifted her head off the thick chain, on which it had been resting. "Do we what?"

  "Do we have to go back?"

  Her eyes narrowed on him. "What are you up to now, Mackie?"

  "God, you have a suspicious nature."

  "I'm not suspicious. It's just that I don't trust you as far as I can throw you," she said sweetly.

  "Now what do you mean by asking if we have to go back to Dallas? Of course we do."

  "Why?"

  "Obligations."

  "To whom?"

  "Well, for one, you've got an obligation to the Tribune."

  "Not as of this morning."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I got fired."

  She looked at him with amazement. "Fired?

  They fired you?" 'Yep.'

  'Why? 'Because I let our rival newspaper scoop me on the Stevie Corbett story."

  Her lips parted in surprise. For several moments she only stared at him, but could find nothing in his open expression to indicate that he was lying. She had hoped he was.

  "You got fired on account of me?"

  He made a negligent answer. "Don't worry about it. Firing me is one of the few things my boss enjoys. I wouldn't think of going straight and depriving him of that occasional pleasure."

  His joking didn't make her smile. "But…but you could have written a dilly of a story. You're the only one who knew the truth."

  "That would have made me a real son of a bitch, wouldn't it? You might find this hard to believe, but I do have some ethics, and when I say a conversation is off-the-record, it's off-the-record."

  He came to his feet and moved toward the swing. Stevie was sitting at an angle, one of her legs stretched along the length of the swing. He encircled her ankle with a firm grip and lifted her leg, then sat down in the swing and laid her leg across his lap.

  "You've got a blister on your foot," he observed.

  "That's what I get for wearing sandals instead of tennis shoes and socks."

  He rubbed the raised, red skin with the pad of his thumb. Stevie's initial plan was to pull her foot away from his massaging hand, but she reconsidered.

  She was afraid to move it for fear that when she did, her heel would come in contact with the bulge behind the frayed fly of his jeans. Better safe than sorry, although she wouldn't call having her foot anywhere near that very safe.

  "We'd better get going before it gets dark," she suggested huskily.

  "I meant what I said." He turned his head and speared her with his eyes. "Let's stay."

  "We can't."

  She wished he'd remove his hand from around her foot. He was drawing patterns in her high arch with his thumb. It was difficult not to squirm and almost impossible to keep from purring with pleasure, especially when the look he was giving her was so disarming.

  "How come?"

  How come? She couldn't think of a single reason. "Because." ''Good reason." He flashed her a grin, but instantly reverted to seriousness.

  "You need time alone to think, Stevie. What better place than here? There's no telephone, no distractions, no snoopy reporters. No one to pressure you. Just me."

  Little did he know that he was the main deterrent.

  But because the idea held such appeal, she hedged from giving him a definite no. "You're going to sit and watch me think through my dilemma?

  Is that what you're proposing?"

  "No, I'm going to work on my novel."

  "Novel? What novel?"

  "The one I'm going to start tomorrow morning.

  If we stay, that is. If we don't, the great American novel will never be written and everybody'll be blaming you."

  "Oh, thanks. So now your career is my responsibility."

  "Well, I did get fired because of you," he reminded her gently.

  "You just said-"

  "I know what I said," he sai
d grumpily.

  "Look, let's stay. You can putter in the flower bed and around the house, cook and clean, and I'll write."

  "Free maid service, that's what you want."

  She pulled her foot from his warm grasp, hoping for the best. Her heel grazed the button fly on his jeans, but she didn't let her mind dwell on the solid fullness she felt beneath it. "You want a housekeeper at your beck and call while you're playing John Steinbeck. You're a con, Mackie, a big con. The most manipulative-"

  "You can lie in bed the livelong day for all I care," he said loudly, overriding her protests. "You are the one who said you wanted to stay busy to keep your mind off…" His eyes skittered down toward her lap. "You know."

  Then he lifted his eyes to hers. One look into her hostile gaze and he blew out a disgusted breath. "Okay, forget I mentioned it. Bad idea.

  I thought both of us could use some time away from the grind to think, reassess, plan, that kind of thing. This seemed the perfect place for it.

  Obviously I was wrong on all accounts."

  He left the swing. It rocked crazily. Stevie steadied it with her foot. "Where would we sleep?" she asked his retreating back.

  He came to an abrupt halt and for several seconds didn't move. When he did, he came around slowly. " 'Where would we sleep'?"

  "Where would I sleep?"

  "You get first pick of the bedrooms."

  "Where would you sleep?"

  "In one of the other bedrooms." He propped his hands on his hips. "Is that what you're thinking, that I have an ulterior motive? A combined housekeeper and mistress." She remained stonily silent and accusatory. "I thought we'd already established that there's no sexual chemistry between us," he said. "Look, I meant this to be a purely platonic setup. Right now both our lives are in upheaval. Why would we want any additional complications?"

  "Exactly."

  "I don't see any sparks arcing between us, do you?"

  "No."

  "Would you go around all dirty and sweaty and generally looking like hell if you were trying to tempt me into being your lover?"