by Sandra Brown
“Hi.”
Her skin looked dewy. She smelled like floral-scented soap. Magnolia, maybe. She had his manuscript pages with her.
“It’s gorgeous here, Parker,” she exclaimed a bit breathlessly. “Last night it was too dark for me to fully appreciate the property. But seeing it in daylight, I understand why you fell in love with this place.” She looked out across the expanse of green lawn, the sugary beach, and the sparkling Atlantic. “It’s wonderful. So peaceful.”
“I forgot a hair dryer.”
Self-consciously she tucked a strand of damp hair behind her ear. “I searched but couldn’t find one. Actually, it’s such a warm morning, it felt good to leave it wet. A hair dryer is all the cottage lacked, however. You did an excellent job on it.”
“Thanks.”
He continued to scrutinize her, and, as he intended, his scrutiny increased her self-consciousness. “The furnishings are charming. I especially like the iron headboard and the claw-footed bathtub.”
“Mike’s ideas.”
“Good ones.”
“Yeah, he’s into all that. Iron beds. Bathtubs. Mantels.”
“He has an eye for detail.”
“I guess.”
The conversation lagged for several moments, then they spoke at the same time.
He said, “Your blouse is wet.”
She said, “I read the new pages.”
“What’d you think?” he asked.
“My blouse?”
“It’s damp.”
She looked down and saw what had held Parker’s attention from the moment she stepped inside. She was dressed in the same skirt and blouse she had arrived in. Following supper last night, Mike had wheedled and pleaded, then insisted that she stay in their guest house. She had finally accepted the invitation, but because of the hour, it had been impractical to try and retrieve her luggage from the hotel in Savannah.
Consequently she had dressed in the same clothes this morning, except for her suit jacket, which she’d left off in deference to the climate. A damp pattern had appeared on the front of her blouse in the exact shape of her bra.
She rolled the sheets of manuscript into a tube, probably to stop herself from using them to shield her chest. “I washed out some things last night.”
Things, plural. If she’d washed out things, what had been left for her to sleep in? Surmising made Parker go a little dewy himself.
“I guess they didn’t get quite dry,” she explained lamely.
“The humidity.”
“I suppose.”
Their eyes connected but only for a millisecond before she looked away. She was embarrassed, and that was good. In fact, that was excellent. He wanted to keep her rattled and off balance. Too fucking bad if Mike disapproved of the strategy.
Leaning forward from the wheelchair, he reached out and took the rolled pages from her. “You read them?”
“Three times.”
He raised his eyebrows inquiringly.
“I have some comments.”
His chin went up defensively.
“Who’s ready for breakfast?” Mike asked.
He appeared in the doorway pushing a wheeled cart on which were platters of scrambled eggs, bacon, and wedges of pastel melons. Fresh from the oven, the biscuits had been wrapped inside a towel and placed in a wire basket. A gravy boat was filled to the rim, and a dish of steamy grits had an island of melting butter in its center.
Parker’s stomach growled and his mouth began to water, but Mike’s timing couldn’t be worse, which Parker was sure had been deliberate. Mike avoided making eye contact with him until Parker said, “I’m on to you, old man.”
“What?” Mike asked innocently.
Parker shot him a wry look, which Mike ignored and instead motioned Maris toward a small table on which Parker sometimes took his meals when he was writing.
“Good Lord.” She watched in dismay as Mike filled her plate. “A bagel and coffee usually do it for me.”
Scoffing, Mike reminded her that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. “Do you like grits?”
“I’m not sure. What exactly is a grit?” Parker laughed along with Mike as she took her first tentative bite, which she gamely swallowed. Politely she said, “Maybe it’s an acquired taste.”
“Break open your biscuit and let me ladle gravy over it,” Mike told her.
Bacon gravy was also new to her, but she declared it delicious. “Do you eat like this every morning?”
“This is a special occasion,” Mike said.
“He’s trying to impress you,” Parker told her.
“It worked.”
She flashed a smile at Mike that should have caused his heart to melt and made Parker irrationally jealous. He grumbled into his plate, “You could’ve impressed her by remembering to put a hair dryer in the guest cottage.”
She and Mike took their time, chatting about this and that as they ate, but he cleaned his plate in record time. Feeling fidgety, he wheeled himself into the kitchen—“No, don’t bother,” he told Mike when he was about to get up. “I’ll get it.”—and returned with the carafe of coffee riding on a tray on his lap.
He refilled their cups, then impatiently sipped from his while they exhausted the topic of cultivating rhododendrons, as if flower bushes mattered a shit. He lasted through a discussion on the merits of Cats over Sunset Boulevard and a heated debate over whether women should be allowed to play in the NBA before he rudely interrupted.
“Can we talk about my book now?”
“What’s your rush?” Mike asked.
“We’re not running a bed and breakfast here.”
“I wish we were.” Mike began collecting their used dishes and loading them onto the service cart. “At least I’d have someone pleasant to talk to now and then.”
“I’m pleasant.”
“As a skin rash.”
Laughing, Parker balled up his napkin and tossed it onto the cart as though shooting a free throw. “Hurry up with those dishes and get back in here. You’ve been a good and gracious host, but I know you’re itching to hear what Maris has to say about Envy.”
Mike went out, muttering under his breath.
“Bet I came out none too well in that monologue,” Parker said when Mike was out of earshot.
“Are you two related?”
“Not by blood.”
“He loves you.”
Parker looked at her sharply. When he saw that she wasn’t being caustic, he bit back a snide retort. He pondered her simple statement, then said slowly, “Yes, I suppose he does.”
“You never considered it?”
“Not in words.”
“Has he always taken care of you?”
“Not always.”
“I meant since your accident.”
“Accident?”
She gestured toward his wheelchair. “I assumed…”
“What made you assume it was an accident?”
“Wasn’t it?”
Mike reappeared but, sensing that he’d walked in on a serious conversation, hesitated on the threshold. Parker waved him forward, this time grateful for the man’s timing. Again, he figured it was intentional. Not much escaped Mike Strother.
Parker took a deep breath, blew it out, and, turning to Maris where she had sat down on the rattan sofa, said, “Okay, let’s get this over with.”
She laughed lightly. “It’s not an execution, Parker.”
“It’s not?”
“Not at all. What you’ve written is good. Very good.” She paused, glancing from him to Mike and back to him.
“Why do I feel that there’s a ‘however’ in my near future?”
She smiled, then said quietly, “You’ve written a terrific outline.”
Mike coughed softly and stared down at his shoes.
“Outline?”
“What you have is excellent.” She wet her lips. “But it’s… It skims the surface. You haven’t delved deeply enough.”
“
I see.”
“This isn’t bad news, Parker.”
“It’s pretty bad.”
Turning his chair around, he rolled it closer to the wall of windows and watched the shallow waves break against the sand. St. Anne Island didn’t have much of a surf at any time, but especially not on a day like today, when the wind would barely qualify as such and there wasn’t an offshore low pressure system churning up the elements.
“I’m not in the least bit discouraged by what I’ve read so far,” Maris said. “Quite the contrary.”
Her voice was even quieter now than before and sounded timid in the uncomfortable silence. From the kitchen came the swishing gurgles of the dishwasher, but otherwise the house was hushed.
Parker’s shoulders began to shake. He covered his mouth to trap in the sound that issued up out of his chest.
Maris was instantly alarmed. “Oh, Parker, please don’t.”
Suddenly he spun his wheelchair around and looked at Mike, who joined in his laughter. “You win, you old son of a bitch. Fifty fucking bucks.”
“I told you,” Mike said, chuckling. “I’ve got great gut instincts.”
“Along with a knack for alliteration.”
Mike executed a neat, quick bow.
Maris, who had come to her feet, divided an angry look between them. She planted her hands on her hips—which she really shouldn’t have done since the stance drew the damp cloth tighter across her chest, detailing lace beneath it.
“Obviously I’m the butt of an inside joke. Would you kindly let me in on it?”
“Not exactly a joke, Maris.” Mike curbed his laughter and even looked a little sheepish. “It was more like an experiment. A test.”
“Test?”
“A few months back we read the article about you in the publishing magazine. To me you came across as a knowledgeable editor and publisher. But Parker said that your daddy probably paid for the article—”
“I said bribed.”
“—then commissioned your publicity department to write the piece.”
“Which explained why it was so flattering.”
“He said that you were no doubt riding on the coattails of your daddy’s reputation, that you looked too young and… uh… inexperienced—”
“Actually, the word I used was ‘shallow.’ ”
“—to know good writing from bad. That your reading was probably limited to magazine articles.”
“On how to multiply your orgasms.”
“And that you probably wouldn’t know a good book from a good… uh…”
“Fill in the blank,” Parker concluded with a beatific smile.
She had listened without interrupting or altering her expression. Now she came around slowly to face Parker, and he could fully appreciate all the metaphors he’d read about sparks shooting from someone’s eyes.
Maris’s eyes were bluish gray, like the rain clouds that rolled in from the west on summer afternoons and benevolently blocked the hot sun. They were basically benign, their turbulence only temporary. But even if short-lived, the turbulence was occasionally fierce. Her eyes had darkened to the hue of a storm cloud about to spawn a lightning bolt.
“I’m sure you’re pissed.” He shrugged, an unrepentant gesture. “I did everything I could, said everything I could think of to say, to discourage you from coming down here. But you came anyway. Last night when I…” He glanced at Mike and immediately decided not to mention kissing her. “When I tried convincing you to leave, you chose to stay.”
His explanation fell short of earning her forgiveness. “You are an unmitigated son of a bitch, aren’t you?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” he said agreeably.
“You tried to trap me.”
“Guilty.”
“If I had gushed over how good your writing was, you would have known I was insincere.”
“Or a lousy editor.”
“But I knew better,” Mike interjected. “I’ve read books that you edited, Maris. I told Parker, made a fifty-dollar bet with him, that his low opinion of you was unfounded and just plain wrong.”
Maris heard all this, of course, but she hadn’t even glanced in Mike’s direction. Her anger was fixed on Parker. He smiled the sly grin of a gator that had just devoured a nest of ducklings, a grin that he knew would only make her more angry. “Sorry you came? Want to call the boat to take you back now?”
She tossed back her damp hair. “What caused Todd’s father’s death?”
Parker’s heart gave a little flutter of gladness and relief. His wicked grin had been a lying indicator of the anxiety he’d been harboring.
“Was his death sudden or did it follow a lingering illness?” she asked.
“Does this mean you’re still interested?”
“Did Todd take his death hard or was he glad to see the end of him? Was his father his idol? Or did the death release him from years of emotional abuse?”
She pushed an armchair close to him and snatched the pages from his hands as she sat down. “Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
“The characters need to be fleshed out.”
“Precisely. Where do they come from? What were their families like? Rich, poor, middle class? Did they have similar upbringings or were their childhoods vastly different? We know they want to be writers, but you haven’t told us why. Simply for the love of books? Or is writing a catharsis for Roark, a way for him to vent his anger? Is it a panacea for Todd’s unhappiness?”
“Panacea?”
“Are you listening?”
“I’ll look it up later.”
“You know what it means,” she snapped.
He smiled again. “Yes. I do.” From the corner of his eye, he noticed Mike leaving the room and pulling the door closed behind him.
Maris was still in high gear. “Life in the fraternity house—”
“There’s more of that in the next chapter.”
“There’s a next chapter?”
“I worked on it this morning.”
“Great. I liked that part. Very much. It’s vivid. As I read, I could smell the gym socks.” She shuddered delicately. “And the bit with the toothbrush…”
“Yeah?”
“It’s almost too outrageous to be fiction. Personal experience?”
“What else needs work?” he asked.
“Ah. I get it. Personal questions are disallowed.”
“If you washed out your undies last night, what did you sleep in?”
She sucked in a quick breath, opened her mouth to speak, then thought better of it. Her teeth clicked softly when she closed her mouth.
Tilting his head, he squinted his eyes as though to bring her into sharper focus. “Nothing, right?”
She lowered her eyes to her lap. Or maybe to his lap. He was tempted to say, Yeah, it works, but if you’re curious, why not touch it and find out? But he didn’t because she just might summon that boat to the mainland after all.
“You’ve made your point,” she said gruffly. “No personal questions.”
Picking up the manuscript pages again, she thumbed through them to refresh her memory on the notes she had jotted in the margins. “I’d like to see you expand, well, just about all of it.” She glanced up at him to gauge his reaction, and when he declined to respond, she sat back with a sigh. “You expected this, didn’t you? You knew what I was going to say.”
He nodded. “I skimmed the surface, just as you said.”
“To test my competence.”
“Hmm.”
“You auditioned me.”
“Something like that.”
Her smile was self-deprecating. She was being a good sport and letting him off more lightly than he deserved. Actually he would prefer that she rant and rave, lambast him with foul language, haul off and let him have it right in the kisser. What he had to do would be easier to do if she were as much of a bitch as he was a bastard. They were unequally matched opponents. She was out of her league and didn’t even know it.
> He said, “You had every right to tell Mike and me to go fuck ourselves.”
“My father would never have tolerated that kind of language from me.”
“So you are a daddy’s girl?”
“Big time. Because he’s such a good daddy. He’s a gentleman and a scholar. He would like you.”
He laughed harshly. “Not if he’s a gentleman, he wouldn’t.”
“You’re wrong. He would admire your audacity. He’d probably even call it ‘balls.’ ”
Parker smiled. “A man after my own heart.”
“He read your prologue and liked it. He encouraged me to pursue this project.”
He gestured toward the manuscript pages. “So pursue it.”
Consulting her notes again, she resumed. “Take your time, Parker. There’s no page limit. Leave the trimming and editing to me. That’s my job. You don’t need to reveal all the background information in the first few chapters. It can be scattered throughout, but learn what the lives of these characters were like prior to the time they met.”
“I already know.” He tapped his temple. “Up here.”
“Excellent. But the reader can’t read your mind.”
“I understand.”
“That’s it, for now.”
She evened up the edges of the sheets, then laid them in her lap. “I’m glad I passed that silly test of yours,” she said candidly. “I’ve missed being involved in this stage of the process. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed it until I began making these notes last night. I love molding the story, brainstorming with the writer, especially a talented writer.”
He pointed to himself. “And that would be me?”
“That would be you. Definitely.”
Her gaze, so candid and earnest, made him uncomfortable. He looked out toward the ocean so he wouldn’t have to see her sincerity, wouldn’t have to feel… so he wouldn’t have to feel, period.
Maybe he was the one playing out of his league.
Leaning toward him, she nudged his knee and lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I don’t suppose you’ve changed your mind about letting me know which character—”
“Beat it, will ya?” He spun his chair away from her and pushed it toward his worktable. “I’ve got a bitch of an editor and she’s piled a shitload of work on me.”