by Beverly Bird
She watched Raphael take the gun from his waistband and put it on the coffee table. His movements were all masculine grace, and there was a catlike awareness about him. She knew he was listening to every word. “As well as can be expected,” she replied finally.
“Listen, I took the liberty of stopping by your apartment this morning. I figured that with all this going on Dinner For Two would be in a state of disaster.”
Kate felt her heart squeeze. “I stopped there, as well, just a little while ago. No one’s called us, Beth. Enjoy a little respite until this is sorted out. I won’t be needing you.”
“What do you mean no one’s called us? There were seventeen messages on your answering machine this morning.”
This time Kate’s heart staggered. Seventeen? She knew immediately what had happened. Both Beth and Janaya had keys to her apartment because she ran the business out of there. Beth had cleared the messages off the machine before Kate had arrived.
She wanted to whoop with the relief of it. She wanted to cry. She couldn’t take any of the jobs. “Who were they from?” she asked carefully.
Beth began reciting a list. Kate motioned frantically at Raphael for a pen and some paper. He brought her a crayon and a torn envelope from his electric bill. She looked at the crayon disbelievingly, then she set about using it.
Most of the clients had called more out of curiosity than anything else. But there were four dinner requests, as well. Kate almost sagged with relief. She couldn’t take the work. She knew that. But she could return each call and salvage what business she could.
She disconnected and looked at the bright red crayon. “You have a very weird life.”
Raphael headed for the kitchen. “I dated someone last spring who had a kid. She brought him by sometimes when she couldn’t find a baby-sitter. What’s for dinner?”
Kate followed him, the crayon still in her hand. “You date a lot.”
He glanced at her as he began opening cupboards. “No, I don’t.”
“Anna Lombardo, and now this crayon lady,” she persisted. She had another thought. “What about Allegra Denise?”
He stopped with a cupboard door in each hand and looked at her. “Allegra?”
“You seemed so…familiar with her the other night. Have you dated her, too?”
Raphael gave a bark of laughter. “Not me. Not on a bet.”
Kate felt an invisible hand around her stomach ease. She couldn’t have said why she’d asked. Maybe it was an effort to figuratively smack herself upside the head. Kate had seen Anna Lombardo’s photograph in the newspapers and had recognized her sort instantly. Like Allegra, Anna had been blond. She’d seemed sleek, polished, confident, with the kind of poise that seemed to bring men to their knees. Kate had guessed before she had read the article that the woman was some type of professional, and Anna had turned out to be a lawyer.
Kate wondered about the crayon lady, and knew without asking that she would have been blond, feminine, seductive, just the way Allegra was. Allegra knew her power over men and she knew how to wield it. Some instinctive guess told her that Anna had been the same way.
It was another very strong reminder to yank her head out of the clouds where Raphael was concerned, Kate thought. She wasn’t even remotely his type—and he, at least, had made no bones about that from the start.
“What are you thinking?” Raphael asked curiously. A frown had gathered between her brows. For a moment, he thought, she looked absolutely bleak.
Kate tossed the crayon neatly so it landed on the kitchen counter. “I guess I’m crimping your style. Being here, I mean. I’m kind of…curtailing your social life.”
It was an innocent enough comment. And memories of Anna rolled over him again like a series of snapshots being fanned out, one after another. He thought of the blood, of the pain and horror in her eyes when she had died, of the way she had looked when they had found her. “I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
In spite of everything she’d just told herself, Kate’s heart kicked. Maybe he had suddenly decided that he was going to go for practical brunettes. “What kind of leaf?”
He opened the refrigerator. “Are you going to cook tonight or not?”
“After you tell me about the leaf.”
“I’ve discovered the glories of playing the field. With brief stops at each base.”
Kate scowled. She was definitely not that kind of woman.
She watched him pry open the container that held the Morley’s leftover lobster salad. “Don’t eat that. It’s two days old. It needs to be thrown out.”
He popped a chunk into his mouth anyway, then he tossed one to the dog who was circling his feet, snapping her jaws like a miniature shark in a feeding frenzy. Belle caught the bite in midair, and they both stared at her.
“I left her in the truck.” Raphael frowned. “Didn’t I?”
Kate hesitated, then nodded. They’d been arguing about who was going to park where, she remembered. And then his cell phone had rung.
Kate glanced over her shoulder into the living room. The front door was slightly ajar. “There’s our answer.” She breathed again and went to close it. But she looked outside at the Explorer as she did. Both its doors were closed. She fought off a shiver and decided not to mention it.
When she returned to the kitchen, she took the lobster salad from Raphael’s hands and began shoveling its contents down the garbage disposal. She had flour in the van, and enough staples to make a crust. She’d noticed a jar of mediocre spaghetti sauce in his cupboard. She had spices with her, as well, and could transform it into pizza sauce.
“What about you?” Raphael asked.
She glanced at him as she tapped a fingernail against an egg from his refrigerator, not entirely trusting its freshness. He had his arms crossed lazily over his chest. One shoulder was tucked against the door jamb. He wore a slight five o’clock shadow that was more golden than dark. “What about me?” she asked carefully.
“There’s no one serious. We know that. So do you date?”
Kate dropped the egg and swore. He cocked a brow at her as she grabbed a paper towel and bent to clean it up. “How do you know there’s no one serious? You don’t know me well enough to be sure.” It bothered her considerably that he had guessed correctly.
“I know women.”
She just bet he did. “Your point?”
“You haven’t spent the last two days frantically calling some poor guy, assuring him that you’re all right when he’s actually enjoying the peace and quiet so he can see a ball game for once. You’re not telling him that even if you are stuck in my home alone with me for the time being, nothing is going to happen because I’m ugly as sin.”
Kate almost choked as she straightened. “Women do that?”
He had that half grin on his mouth again, the one that said he was enjoying himself. “Which? Call guys frantically, or lie?”
She couldn’t help herself. Another peal of laughter rolled up her throat and escaped her. “You have an excellent opinion of yourself.”
“And you’re pretty clever at changing the subject.”
“What was it again?” She found another egg and set about mixing dough in the bowl.
“Do you date? Or is that a waste of your precious, organized time?”
Kate’s hands stalled before she made herself resume movement. It stung. She had known that the longer she stayed with him, the more his offhand remarks would hurt her. But she hadn’t been ready for this one. “You don’t know me,” she said again, stiffly.
Raphael thought about it. He did, he thought, more and more with each passing minute. And right now, he was hitting pretty close to the mark. “There was someone,” he realized. “Past tense.”
Kate didn’t answer.
“What happened?” He couldn’t have said why he was so determined to know.
Kate was just as determined not to tell him.
“He moved your magazines? Left your milk out? Why’d you dump him?”
<
br /> “He dumped me!”
Raphael was momentarily stunned into silence. “Why?” he asked finally.
Kate drove a fist hard into the pizza dough, punching it down. “I’m not Allegra.”
He scowled. He didn’t get it.
“He ran off with an Allegra.”
“Then he was an idiot.”
She had never meant to allow it, but her heart fluttered anyway.
“You didn’t go after him?” Raphael asked.
She was appalled at the very idea. “No!”
Raphael nodded. “You wouldn’t fight for anyone who didn’t light a spark in you right from the start,” he decided.
Kate’s hands hesitated.
“If there was no—” he trailed off, hunting up the right words “—no passion or desperation, or the kind of need that makes you think you’re going to die if you don’t quench it—if there’s nothing like that, it wouldn’t be worth your bother.”
She stared at him, feeling as naked as if he had suddenly peeled her clothing off, layer by layer. It was too true, but she had never understood the difference until this man had touched her. If left her feeling like crying.
“Glory be, Kate Mulhern,” he said mildly, “underneath all that starch and practicality, you’re really nothing but a romantic.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” she said faintly. He made it sound like she was some sort of anomaly.
“No. It’s just rare.”
Finally, he understood the sense of panic that had been itching just under his skin all day. There remained the blatant fact that whether he intended to enjoy this woman or not, she had no such designs on him. She dressed like an Eskimo each night before going to bed, and she was certainly not feeling passion or desperation or need where he was concerned. She’d been trying to move mountains all day in an effort to be rid of him. No matter that she had kissed him back that one time. That had been purely surprise.
She wasn’t going to come after him any more than she had battled the Allegra-type lady for her ex-boyfriend’s heart.
That was good, he told himself. It was very, very good. Because crazy about her or not, that was where it had to begin and end.
Raphael’s cell phone rang again, and he grabbed it from the counter and growled into it. A moment later, he passed it to her again. “Get your own number.”
Kate cleaned her hands quickly and put the phone to her ear. “Hello?”
It was Beth again. “Did you call Faith Spellman back?”
For a moment, Kate’s mind went blank. She watched Raphael stalk from the kitchen. What was wrong with him now? Something in her blood still hummed from the words he’d spoken. Passion. Desperation. Need. As the words had filled the air between them, everything inside her had heightened, sharpened, waiting. Then he had shut down again, leaving her feeling as though she was all dressed up for a party that had just been canceled.
“Uh, no,” Kate answered Beth. “I’m making dinner. I’ll do it later.”
“Maybe you should take a minute and do it now. Faith called back a second time. She’s crazy for you to do this cocktail party on Wednesday night.”
“I can’t do her party.” Then Kate’s mind jammed on something else. “How do you know she called back?”
“I’m at your apartment again.”
“Why?”
Raphael came into the kitchen at the change in her tone.
“I left my purse here this morning,” Beth said. “I came back for it and there was another message on the machine, even though you said there were none when you were here. So I took it.”
“I’ll call her now.” She thanked Beth and disconnected. “This will just take a minute,” she told Raphael. “I’ve got a job to turn down.”
She said it with such grim practicality, it both irritated him and stabbed at something deep inside him. “What kind of job?”
“Beth said a cocktail party. I don’t do parties anyway.” She punched numbers in and connected with the Spellmans.
Raphael watched her face change as she talked. The grimness gave way to despair. But that went quickly to anger—the kind that boiled up whenever she realized the unfairness of what was happening to her life. He leaned over the counter toward her. “Call them back.”
Kate slapped a hand over the phone. “Will you please refrain from interrupting me?”
“Call them back,” he said again. “I want to talk to you for a minute.”
“About what? Can’t it wait until I explain to this woman that even if I had an up-and-running catering business right now, I still wouldn’t serve hors d’oeuvres?”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“I just don’t do that sort of thing.”
“Not even under the circumstances? Not even to placate someone who might stick with you through all this? Honey, you’ve got to learn to bend.”
Temper kicked in her. Hurt shimmied. She didn’t know if she was angry with him for his unflattering estimation of her—again—or because he was right.
She was not so rigid that she couldn’t adjust when the situation warranted it. “Um…could you hold on one moment, Mrs. Spellman?” Kate covered the phone with her hand. “Are you saying I can do this? You’ll let me? It’s safe?”
He wasn’t sure, but he thought it was worth considering. “I’m saying I want to know what the job entails.”
“Hors d’oeuvres.”
“Nothing big? No…like, dinners?”
“It’s a cocktail party.”
“I know what a cocktail party is.”
Of course, he did, Kate thought. Anna would have been familiar with the concept.
“For your own sweet sake, I’m trying to determine if these hors d’oeuvres might be something you can create in my kitchen and drop off there.” Damn it, he was trying to help her. And every time he did, she found a way to make it drive his blood pressure up.
“I could do that.” She sniffed. “Assuming I was your average caterer.”
“Then be an average caterer! Make some of that precious money we were talking about today! Let this lady trumpet it all over town that Dinner For Two made a special exception for her!”
“Why are you shouting at me?”
“Because you are the most stubborn, argumentative—” flushed, he thought, her skin was pink again “—rule-abiding, unflappable—” except her mouth was hanging open now, and what she really looked was innocent and shocked “—stuffy—”
“I am not stuffy! How dare you say that?”
“You sleep in sixteen layers of clothing!”
“I get hot in them, too! I lied!”
He stared at her a moment.
Then he kissed her again.
He hadn’t known he was going to do it. But his temper yanked gleefully away from him, beyond his control, and suddenly her rejection of him seemed like the most important thing in the world. It was stronger than his sense.
She’d react to him again. Damn it, she’d do it. Even if it was just born out of more surprise.
As kisses went, Kate thought as her mind spun away, it was awkward. He leaned over the kitchen counter and his hands found her hair, cupping either side of her head. Kate leaned into him, as well, instinctively, and the counter edged into her waist.
He chose the damnedest times and places, she thought. And then her mind wouldn’t work anymore at all.
What she felt was…desperation. Heat rushed up in her, straight from her belly into her limbs, weakening them. The telephone clattered out of her grip, hitting the counter then bouncing off. She reached up and caught his wrists in both hands. Together they moved, a step, then another, blindly, until the counter was no longer between them, his mouth still on hers.
Then Kate did something she had never done before in her life. She gave herself utterly, hungrily and greedily, to sensation, without a moment’s pause for deliberation or shock.
She had never really believed this might happen again. Now that it had, she wouldn’t waste a s
econd of it. His hands were still caught in her hair. He urged her head back. She gave no resistance, couldn’t. She didn’t care that her throat was laid bare to him, vulnerable. She craved his mouth there, too. But when he moved his lips from hers to skim his tongue along the line of her jaw, she cried aloud and turned her face into his again.
She wanted that, yes, but she wanted to taste him again, too, wanted so much more, wanted all he would give.
She swayed against him, and Raphael felt the surrender in the way her bones melted. This, he thought, shaken, this was what he had imagined—that control of hers peeling back, and with a touch here or there, she would completely unravel. He knew—extraordinarily, he thought—just where to kiss her. He didn’t need to learn her, to practice to figure her out.
It would be here, he thought, that place at her throat where her pulse fluttered at the oddest damned times. The heat of his mouth touched her, and Kate went wild.
Now, she thought, here, this, right now. Her hands fell from his wrists. She dug her fingers into his shirt front. Wanting skin, wanting it next to hers, willing to tear through fabric to have it. His mouth wasn’t enough. Though, yes, she thought, yes, it was glorious.
She dragged his mouth back to hers until their tongues tangled again. She drove her hands into his hair and held him there, demanding, the need inside her so raw and so suddenly alive, she thought she would die if she didn’t quench it.
And then a voice squawked at them from the floor.
The telephone. Kate didn’t recognize the sound at first. But she was aware of the change it made in Raphael. His hands caught her wrists and he held them tightly…and then his mouth was gone from hers.
He put her away from him deliberately.
“I wasn’t going to do that.” His voice was roughened, hoarse.
Kate looked dazedly into his eyes and saw the lingering heat there. And something else. There was something dark and hard there…something angry.
What had she done? She had thrown herself at him. Mortification rose in her from her toes. Then reality sank in. “You kissed me! You did it first!”