by Sally Felt
Wow. He’d found yet another way to have fun climbing.
When he jumped clear of the wall and turned to see how the punks had taken his improv wall dance, it wasn’t only kids watching. A vision dressed like a film star from the forties stared at him. Even with her hair hidden under a sleek little hat, there was no mistaking the sexy flush on the face beneath. Isabelle Caine had come to Wall Werx.
“Isabelle,” he said, unable to think.
By her side, a kid wearing a Texas Aggies t-shirt and braces on his teeth said, “This lady was looking for Damon.”
“Thanks, Cameron,” Kim said, remembering the kid’s name from a past climbing basics class. He waved the others off. “As you were,” he said, “nothing to see here,” which was far from true.
Isabelle’s old-fashioned suit was the color of fertile, Midwest river-bottom soil and followed every delicious curve of her. The jacket buttoned to a low V-neckline she wore nothing beneath, showing plenty of creamy skin, though the suit was perfectly decent, even downright modest compared with what Shawna and Jules and other female climbers wore.
She was definitely not the average climber. She was a bombshell from another era. The hat centered his attention on her face, especially her mouth. He’d thought about that mouth a lot last night in all the hours he hadn’t slept.
He stepped nearer so he wouldn’t have to shout to be heard over the music. He was keenly aware of the perspiration gluing his shirt to his skin. He hoped he didn’t stink. “What a surprise,” he said to her. But she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking around. She was looking up. She was looking paler with every moment.
“How high is it?” she asked. Her throat worked as if she struggled to swallow a large pebble.
“Fifty feet. Actually fifty-one and four inches. We’ve got a full sixteen inches of concrete, topped with cushion, so every anchor is bombproof. Do you climb?”
“Up? Up there? Oh my, no,” she said.
“I hope you’ll decide to change that.”
She was lovely. In Kim’s experience, women generally had one part of the day that suited them best. Isabelle Caine had been a warmly sexy candlelit woman. Now he saw she became a translucent-skinned beauty in the building’s combination of fluorescent boxes and natural sky-lit afternoon. He wondered if she might be a morning troll, if only out of fairness to the rest of womankind.
“Ms. Caine?”
Her eyes tracked to his voice, but they didn’t seem to focus on him. There was something wrong. Her throat still worked at that pebble.
“Come sit down,” he said, taking her arm. Damon had brought a selection of garage sale furniture to the Big Top’s open center so climbers could watch each other in relative comfort. Kim steered Isabelle around the faux leather sofa and torn recliner to the piece that had once been someone’s dining room chair, straight backed and armless. She sat. The flush had faded from her cheeks. Her lips were pressed together. He squatted beside the chair and took her hand.
It seemed to help her. “So rough,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I like it.”
She liked it. Why did that make him happy? He nearly came back with something about her liking it rough, but this wasn’t the moment. He contented himself with the thought that she liked his touch and waited for her to pull herself together.
Cameron was already halfway up the Bender route while his climbing partner, a teen in a yellow tank top Kim didn’t recognize, watched on belay.
The kids who’d wanted to play their own music experimented with the beat Kim had chosen, climbing double-time, stopping in rest position and rotating their weight from limb to limb. They seemed to be having fun.
“How embarrassing,” Isabelle said, her breathy tone somehow lighting vivid sensory memories of succumbing to the urge to kiss her last night, her thawing in his protective embrace. “I come here to ask you a favor and then I get flustered.”
Kim blinked. “Favor? Me? I thought you came looking for Damon.”
“No. Yes.” An exasperated sigh and pursed lips seemed to signal the return of the confident lioness he’d met last night.
“You and I have been requested to chaperone on a double date,” she said. “You made quite an impression, it seems.”
Chaperone. Double date. When had he last heard either one of those words? He tried not to smile.
She kept her voice and her gaze low. “I know it’s a lot to ask, considering, but would you mind making an encore performance?”
He no longer held her hand. When had she drawn back from him? “I’m confused,” he said. “Are you asking me out?”
He’d have sworn nothing could distract him before she’d answered, but a blur of motion in his peripheral vision tore his attention back to the room. The kid belaying for Cameron lay on his back on the floor, limbs flailing. Cameron swung wildly on twenty feet of rope. Only practiced use of his hands and feet prevented him smashing his head on the wall.
Kim leapt to his feet.
“Oh my,” Isabelle said.
The downed kid had been yanked off his feet when Cameron fell, which wouldn’t have happened if he had been doing his job as belayer and paying attention. Kim would deal with him later. He put himself between the two and got a grip on the rope.
“You okay, Cameron?” he called.
“Got it.” Cameron had slowed his spinning and swinging both. Even better, he was calm. Good kid. Good instincts.
Yellow Tank Top was back on his feet. “I’ll take him down,” he said.
Kim nodded, still too angry to speak to him. He stepped out of the kid’s way and watched him lower the climber to the gym floor. As soon as Cameron was safely down, Kim rounded on the would-be belayer.
“What happened?”
The kid shrugged. He was even ganglier than Cameron, all bony shoulders in his yellow tank top. “He fell.”
“So did you.” Kim grabbed the center tie-in of the kid’s harness and jerked hard. The kid stumbled. “You’re supposed to be watching.” He jerked again. “It’s your job to keep him safe.” The kid grabbed at Kim’s wrists and tried to push him away.
“Stop it, man.”
“Are you even certified to belay?”
“Let go or I’ll sue.”
Kim released him. “I don’t want to see you in here again. You can piss about it to Damon. I don’t care.”
The kid wriggled his shoulders and moved his head back and forth as if to check for neck damage, as if Kim had shaken him that hard. Not half as hard as he wanted to.
Around them, activity in the gym had come to a standstill. Cap and Tattoo leaned back from their holds on the wall. Seemed everyone else was on the ground. Watching. It had been a pretty spectacular fall, considering the safety precautions in place at Wall Werx. Yet Cameron hadn’t taken a scratch—just as it should be.
Kim jerked his head toward the door. “Get out of here,” he told Yellow Tank. “Now.”
Grumbling and posturing, the kid went.
“Sorry, Kim,” Cameron said. “I thought he was cool.”
“Could have been worse.” Kim rolled his shoulders, letting it go. “You going to take another run at the Bender?”
Cameron demonstrated he was still tied in. “I’d like to.”
“Go see if there’s someone in the garden who’s certified and willing. If not, I’ll do it.”
The kid unclipped himself and headed out of the Big Top toward the boulder garden.
The crowd had already lost interest and resumed their individual efforts, leading Kim to remember he’d been in the midst of his own intriguing conversation. He found Isabelle on her feet, staring straight up at the spot where Cameron had fallen. Her hat had slipped to the floor behind her. She didn’t seem to notice.
“He’s fine,” he said to her. “It’s not dangerous.” Not if the idiot on belay paid attention, anyway.
She licked her lips, which would have been far nicer to watch if he hadn’t suspected she was stiff with f
right. “I need to go,” she said. She turned toward the door. Kim scooped up her hat and followed, only too aware he was still Guy in Charge and couldn’t leave the gym floor. Damn Damon.
“So, tonight?” he said. “Double date?”
“Yes.” She sounded wooden. Her translucence had clouded into something plastic and uncomfortable. He still wanted to touch her.
She walked through the door. Kim stopped. Luckily, she noticed and turned around. One quick glance beyond him and suddenly her gaze was focused on his face. Very focused, as if she were determined not to see anything beyond him.
“Yes,” she repeated. “The Mirabelle for dinner. A jacket, but no tie.”
“What time should I pick you up?” He wondered what he’d offered to do, who the other couple was and why she looked sick.
She looked at the hat he offered, touched the flattened curls of her hair and frowned. “Thank you,” she said. “Seven thirty?”
“Seven thirty,” he said.
* * * * *
As seven thirty approached, Isabelle was still in her pajamas, a white hooded t-shirt with cotton drawstring pajama pants covered in large pink and orange flowers. Comfort food for the body. Bad enough she’d lost her composure this afternoon in that three-story death trap Kim Martin called a gym. But Charlie remained MIA, and she’d had to reschedule her closet installation. She hated letting down a client.
A long bath followed by sorting files and organizing drawers had given her back a sense all was as it should be. Time to get dressed.
Why would anyone haul himself fifty feet off the ground, supported by nothing but a thin nylon rope? It was insane. And yet, there were all those kids, clinging to the walls like crazed, spandex-wearing arachnids.
Kim Martin apparently did it too. He evidently thought it was fun.
And safe.
She opened her wardrobe and gazed at her choices with no more attention than a man hanging on an open fridge door.
Of course, it had almost been worth it to see Kim all sweaty in a clingy t-shirt. And shorts. Oh my, what legs. Whatever they called what he’d been doing on the wall when the boy named Cameron showed her in, it was hot enough to have her doing a little perspiring of her own.
At least until she’d noticed all the ropes hanging from the impossibly high ceiling, and the people intent on using them. At least until that boy fell and nearly killed himself smashing into the wall.
She shivered.
The doorbell rang, focusing her in a hurry. Kim Martin had arrived.
She opened the door. “Come on in. I’m afraid it’s going to be a few minutes.”
“No problem,” he said, apparently unsurprised. At least her PJs were cute ones. He presented her with an armload of the most vibrant watermelon-pink tulips she’d ever seen, wrapped in dark-blue tissue paper that set the blooms and bright-green stems aglow.
“Oh!” Nothing more intelligent would come to her lips. Her face must have reassured him, because Kim Martin cut loose with a no-holds-barred smile that took his sex appeal right off the charts.
And then he kissed her.
For a moment, she forgot she’d agreed to this evening to get back at Steven and simply sank into the pleasure of Kim’s kiss. He knew how to kiss a woman, creating a sensuous balance between making her comfortable and letting her know there were less civilized forces lurking beneath the surface.
It was just a kiss, but it was enough to make her think about what it might be like to have more, to have his undivided attention, the touch of his rough hands and a full night of that smile on the pillow beside hers.
Dangerous. He was definitely dangerous.
No, no, no.
Men were not on the menu tonight, especially not Mr. So-Gorgeous-Women-Want-To-Touch-Him Kim Martin, all seventy-two lean, tanned inches of him. Dressed, she finally noticed, in a fitted silk shirt, opened at the throat, and a short leather coat. The shirt was Easter-egg blue, making his ringed eyes even more vivid.
And at a time when most Dallas men blindly adopted a uniform of smooth black leather, Kim’s coat was mahogany brown, a color as dark as his untamed, every-which-way hair. He was more devastating than the flowers she still held.
But that’s what she’d wanted for this plan, wasn’t it? Someone who could outshine Steven in every department?
She went to the kitchen to put the flowers in water. He followed her, talking to her, asking if she were okay after this afternoon, telling her the kid was fine.
He was talking about falling from a fifty-foot ceiling again. She didn’t want to talk about that. Isabelle got a beer from the fridge. “Want one?”
Kim shook his head. “I’m driving.”
Isabelle finished her swig.
“So who are we chaperoning?” he asked with a smile, suggesting the idea amused him.
“Stacey and Bob,” she said.
“Lumber Barn Stacey and Bob the Giant?”
Isabelle grinned. “Bob-the-Giant-what, though. That’s the question.”
Kim grinned back at her.
Dangerous, but fun. Lots of fun. She told him to make himself at home while she got dressed.
“What’s your favorite color?” he asked through the bedroom door as she laid a dress on the bed.
“Orange.”
He laughed. “No way. That’s mine, too. What about dogs? Do you like dogs?”
She’d been about to pull off her t-shirt. Instead, she opened the bedroom door. “Depends on the dog,” she said, looking at him. “What’s going on?”
“We’re supposed to be secretly dating, right?”
She nodded, blushing.
“It’d be easier for me if we knew more about each other.”
“Oh. Good point. Do you like dogs?”
He slipped his hands in the pockets of his tobacco-brown trousers. “Love ‘em. I’m thinking of getting a Rhodesian Hatchback. Or maybe a Great Dame.”
She laughed. “Great Dame? Hatchback?”
He pretended to look surprised. “You prefer the Nosehair Terrier?”
She shook her head. What a goof.
“An all-American mutt, then,” he said, grinning. “Maybe a shepherd mix.”
“Hmm. Keep talking.” She closed the door between them and pulled off her clothes.
“Are you the little sister, or is Charlie the little brother?”
“Good one. I’m the big sister, but only by three weeks. Charlie has been my brother since I was thirteen, but I’ve known him since I was six.”
Silence from the other side of the door. Isabelle slid the dress over her head and smiled. Should she make him ask?
“I’ll be twenty-seven,” she said, checking the full-length mirror beside her dresser. The dress wasn’t orange. It was three degrees darker than the flowers Kim had brought. watermelon wine. She thought about changing into their mutual favorite, but if she remembered right, Mirabelle had orange walls. She didn’t want to blend in. “August the eighth.”
“That only leaves me a few months to shop,” he said. “I’d better get started.”
She laughed and moved into the bathroom for eye makeup.
The door and the distance between them muffled whatever he said next. Since she wasn’t one to let her date watch her get ready, she let him wind down while she finished.
Not that this was a date. Not a real one.
When she returned to the living room, she found Kim browsing the framed family photos she’d arranged on the built-in bookcase. He had one in his hand as he turned to greet her.
His gaze seemed trapped in the bare skin between her chin and the top of her slip dress. It slid down the fluid red fabric and got stuck again at her short, beaded hemline. His lips moved as if saying “wow”. Finally, he managed to meet her eyes, looking dazed. A little rush of pleasure skated over her skin.
Offhand, she couldn’t remember a more compelling reaction from a date. Not that this was really any such thing. Still the heat in his eyes could not be easily dismissed, whatever word
she might choose. This much, at least, wasn’t an act for him. His kiss hadn’t been an act, either. If she wanted another taste, she could have it, and more. Yes, please. She swallowed hard as blood left her brain for a more primitive distribution.
Kim shook his head as if to clear it. “Warn a man before you do that.”
And so the danger passed. She tried not to be disappointed. This wasn’t going anywhere beyond a favor to Stacey. And a last jab at Steven. And maybe one more kiss for herself. For the road.
“I thought you said we were chaperones,” he said. “Even if I manage to behave, Bob is likely to change his mind about your friend.”
Even if? Damn, he was good at this. She grinned at him. “Thank you for that,” she said. He made a gesture suggesting he was helpless to do otherwise. She grabbed the beaded shawl from the bedroom doorknob and took his arm.
As she closed the front door behind them, he asked, “So are we sleeping together?”
Chapter Four
The keys slipped out of Isabelle’s hand and jangled to the boards of the porch. Did he really just say that?
Kim laughed, squatting to get the keys and handing them to her. “Oops. I didn’t mean to startle you. It just seemed relevant.”
She worked again at fitting the key into the door to secure the deadbolt. Even with the porch light on, it wasn’t easy, distracted as she was.
“To our roles as secretly dating chaperones, I mean,” he said.
Oh. He sure didn’t talk like any plumber Isabelle had met. Of course, he didn’t look like any other, either.
“I’m going to get slapped, aren’t I?”
“No,” she said. “I’m just…I’m not…”
The problem, of course, was wanting to sleep with him and yet wanting none of the complications that would follow. Like jealousy. Hers. And infidelity. His.
Crap.
“Neither of them believe we’re sleeping together,” she said.
“That’s easy, then.”
Maybe for him.
She tossed the shawl around her bare shoulders and walked with him down the porch steps and up the walk, where he opened the door of a newish-looking orange Jeep for her.