Daring Moves

by Linda Lael Miller

  There was a long pause while he digested that. “Is this something I should know about?”

  Amanda nodded, even though he wasn’t there to see her. “Yes,” she admitted, “but I can’t talk about it like this. I have to be with you.”

  “I could get in the car and be there in half an hour.”

  Amanda would have given anything short of her very soul to have Jordan there in the room with her, to be held and comforted by him. But she’d only known him a little while, and she had no right to make demands. “I’ll be okay,” she said softly.

  After that, there didn’t seem to be much to say. Jordan promised to phone her from Chicago the first chance he got and Amanda wished him well, then the call was over.

  Amanda had barely replaced the receiver, when the bell jangled again, startling her. If it had been Jordan she would have relented and asked him to come over, but the voice on the other end of the line was a woman’s.

  “Well, I must say, I half expected you to be at the hospital, clutching James’s hand and swearing your undying love.”

  Amanda closed her eyes again, feeling as though she’d been struck. The caller was Madge Brockman, James’s estranged wife. “Mrs. Brockman, I—”

  “Don’t lie to me, please. I just spoke to someone on the hospital staff, and they told me James had suffered a heart attack ‘at the home of a friend.’ It didn’t take a genius to figure out just who that ‘friend’ might be.”

  Deciding to let the innuendos pass unchallenged, Amanda asked, “Is James going to be all right?”

  “He’s in critical condition. I’m flying in tonight to sit with him.”

  It was a relief to know James wouldn’t be going through this difficult time alone. “Mrs. Brockman, I’m very sorry—for everything.”

  The woman hung up with a slam, leaving Amanda holding the receiver in one trembling hand and listening to a dial tone. Slowly she put down the phone, then crouched to unplug it from the outlet. After disconnecting the living room phone, as well, she took a long, hot shower and crawled into bed.

  The sound of her alarm and faceful of bright sunshine woke her early the next morning. The memory of James lying on her bedroom floor in terrible pain was still all too fresh in her mind.

  But Amanda had a job, so, even though she would have preferred to stay in bed with her face turned to the wall, she fed the cat, showered, dressed and put on makeup. Once she’d pinned her hair up in a businesslike chignon, she reconnected the telephones and called the hospital.

  James was in stable condition.

  Longing for Jordan, who might have been able to put the situation into some kind of perspective, Amanda pulled on her coat and gloves and left her apartment.

  Late that afternoon, just as she was preparing to go home for the day, Jordan called. He was getting ready to have dinner with some clients, and there was something clipped about his voice. Something distant.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  Amanda heard a whole glacier of emotion shifting beneath the tip of the iceberg. “Not a whole lot,” she admitted, “but it’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  She could almost see him hooking his cuff links. “I read about James in the afternoon edition of the paper, Amanda.”

  So he knew about the heart attack, and she was no longer ‘Mandy.’ “Word gets around,” she managed, propping one elbow on her desk and sinking her forehead into her palm.

  “Is that what you didn’t want to talk about last night?”

  There was no point in trying to evade the question further. “Yes. It happened in my bedroom, Jordan.”

  He was quiet for a long time. Much too long.

  “Jordan?”

  “I’m here. What was he doing in your bedroom, or don’t I have the right to ask?”

  Tears were brimming in Amanda’s eyes, and she prayed no one would step into her office and catch her displaying such unprofessional emotions. “Of course you have the right. He came over because he wanted to persuade me to start seeing him again. I told him to take back the things he gave me, and then I remembered some jewelry he’d given me a long time ago. I went to get them, and he followed me.” She drew in a shaky breath, then let it out again. “He got very angry, and he was yelling at me. He just—just fell to the floor.”

  “My God,” Jordan rasped. “What kind of shape is he in now?”

  “When I called the hospital this morning, he was stable.”

  Jordan’s voice was husky. “Mandy, I’m sorry.”

  Amanda didn’t know whether he meant he was sorry for doubting her, or he was sorry about James’s misfortune. “I wish you were here,” she said, testing the water. Everything would ride on his reply.

  “So do I,” he answered.

  Relief flooded over Amanda. “You’re not angry?”

  He sighed. “No. I guess I just lost my head for a little while there. Do you want me to come back tonight, Mandy? There’s a flight at midnight.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Stay there and set the financial world on its ear. I’ll be okay.”

  “Promise?”

  For the first time since before James’s collapse, Amanda smiled. “I promise.”

  “In that case, I’ll be back sometime on Friday night. How about penciling me into your busy schedule, Ms. Scott?”

  Amanda chuckled. “Consider yourself penciled.”

  “In fact,” he went on, “have a bag packed. I’ll stop and pick you up on my way home from the airport.”

  “Have a bag packed?” Amanda echoed. “Wait a minute, Jordan. What are you proposing here?”

  He hesitated only a moment before answering, “I want you to spend the weekend at my place.”

  Amanda’s throat tightened. “Is this the Jordan I know—the one who insists on taking things slow and easy?”

  “The same,” Jordan replied, his words husky. “I need to have you under the same roof with me, Mandy. Whether we sleep together is entirely up to you.”

  She plucked some tissue from the box on her desk and began wiping away the mascara stains on her cheeks. “That’s mighty mannerly of you, Mr. Richards,” she drawled.

  “See you Friday,” he replied.

  And after just a few more words, Amanda hung up.

  It was some time before she got out of her chair, though. She’d had some violent ups and downs in the past twenty-four hours, and her emotional equilibrium was not what it might have been.

  After taking a few minutes to sit with her head resting on her folded arms, Amanda finished up a report she’d been working on, then slipped into the ladies’ room to repair her makeup. Leaving the elevator on the first floor of the hotel, she encountered Madge Brockman.

  Mrs. Brockman was a slender, attractive brunette, expensively dressed and clearly well educated. There were huge shadows under her eyes.

  “Hello, Amanda,” she said.

  At first Amanda thought it was just extraordinarily bad luck that she’d run into Mrs. Brockman, but moments later she realized the woman had been waiting in the lobby for her. “Hello, Mrs. Brockman. How is James?”

  James’s wife reached for Amanda’s arm, then let her hand fall back to her side. “I was wondering if you wouldn’t have a drink with me or something,” she said awkwardly. “So we could talk.”

  Amanda took a deep breath. “If there’s going to be a scene—”

  Madge shook her head quickly. “There won’t be, I promise.”

  Hoping Mrs. Brockman meant what she’d said, Amanda followed her into the cocktail lounge, where they took a quiet table in a corner. When the waiter came, Amanda asked for a diet cola and Mrs. Brockman ordered a gin and tonic.

  “The doctor tells me James is going to live,” Mrs. Brockman said when the drinks had arrived and the waiter was gone again.

  Amanda dared a slight smile. “That’s wonderful.”

  Madge looked at her with tormented eyes. “James admitted he went to your apartment on his own last night, and not because you�
�d invited him. He—he’s a proud man, my James, so it wasn’t easy for him to say that you’d rejected him.”

  Not knowing what to say, Amanda simply waited, her hands folded in her lap, her diet cola untouched.

  “He’s agreed to come back home to California with me when he gets out of the hospital,” Mrs. Brockman went on. “I don’t know if that’s a new start or what, but I do know this much—I love James. If there’s any way we can begin again, well, I want a fighting chance.”

  “It’s over between James and me,” Amanda said gently. “It has been for months and months.”

  Mrs. Brockman’s eyes held a flicker of hope. “You were telling the truth six months ago when I confronted you in your office, weren’t you? You honestly didn’t know James was married.”

  Amanda sighed. “That’s right. As soon as I found out, I broke it off.”

  “But you loved him, didn’t you?”

  Amanda felt a twinge of the pain that time and hard work and Jordan had finally healed. “Yes.”

  “Then why didn’t you hold on? Why didn’t you fight for him?”

  “If he’d been my husband instead of yours, I would have,” Amanda answered, reaching for her purse. She wasn’t going to be able to choke down so much as a sip of that cola. “I’m not cut out to be the Other Woman, Mrs. Brockman. I want a man I don’t have to share.”

  Madge Brockman smiled sadly as Amanda stood up. “Have you found one?”

  “I hope so,” Amanda answered. Then she laid a hand lightly on Mrs. Brockman’s shoulder, just for a moment, before walking away.

  Jordan arrived at seven o’clock on Friday night, looking slightly wan, his expensive suit wrinkled from the trip. “Hi, Mandy,” he said, reaching out to gather her close.

  Dressed for the island in blue jeans, walking boots and a heavy beige cable-knit sweater, Amanda went into his arms without hesitation. “Hi,” she answered, tilting her head back for his kiss.

  He tasted her mouth before moving on to possess it entirely. “I don’t suppose you’re going to be merciful enough to tell me what you’ve decided,” he said, sounding a little breathless, when the long kiss was over.

  “About what?” Amanda asked with feigned innocence, and kissed the beard-stubbled underside of his chin. Of course she knew he wanted to know what the sleeping arrangements would be on the island that night.

  Jordan laughed hoarsely and gave her a swat. “You know damn well ‘about what’!” he lectured.

  Despite the weariness she felt, Amanda grinned at him. “If you guess right, I’ll tell you,” she teased.

  He studied her with tired, laughing, hungry eyes. “Okay, here’s my guess. You’re going to say you want to sleep in the guest room.”

  Amanda rocked back on her heels, resting against his hands, which were interwoven behind her, and said nothing.

  “Well?” Jordan prodded.

  “You guessed wrong,” Amanda told him.

  “Thank God,” he groaned.

  Amanda laughed. “Let’s go—we’ll miss the ferry.”

  Jordan’s lips, warm and moist, touched hers. “We could just stay here—”

  “No way, Mr. Richards,” Amanda protested, pulling back. “You invited me to go away for the weekend and I want to go away.”

  “What about the cat?” Jordan reasoned as Gershwin jumped onto the back of an easy chair and meowed plaintively.

  “My landlady is going to take care of him,” Amanda said, pulling out of Jordan’s embrace and picking up her suitcase and overnight case. “Here,” she said, shoving the suitcase at him.

  “I like a subtle woman,” Jordan muttered, accepting it.

  Soon they were leaving the heart of the city behind for West Seattle, where they caught the South-worth ferry. Once they were on board the enormous white boat, however, they remained in the car instead of going upstairs to the snack bar with most of the other passengers.

  “I’ve missed you,” Jordan said, leaning back in the seat, resting his hand on Amanda’s upper thigh and gripping her fingers.

  “And I’ve missed you,” Amanda answered. They’d already run through all the small talk; Jordan had told her about his business trip and she’d detailed her hectic week. By tacit agreement, they hadn’t discussed James’s heart attack.

  Jordan splayed the fingers of his left hand and ran them through his rumpled hair, then gave a heavy sigh. He moved his thumb soothingly over Amanda’s knuckles. “Do you have any idea how much I want you?”

  She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it. “How much?”

  He chuckled. “Enough to wish this were a van instead of a sports car.” Jordan turned in the seat and cupped Amanda’s chin in his hand. “You’re sure you’re ready for this?” he asked gently.

  Amanda nodded. “I’m sure. How about you?”

  Jordan grinned. “I’ve been ready since I turned around and saw you standing in line behind me.”

  “You have not.”

  “Okay,” he admitted, “it started after that, when you threw five bucks on the table to pay for your Chinese food. For just a moment, when you thought I was going to refuse it, you had blue fire in your eyes.”

  “And?”

  “And I had this fantasy about the whole mall being deserted—except for us, of course. I made love to you right there on the table.”

  Amanda felt a hot shiver go through her. “Jordan?”

  His lips were moving against hers. “Yes?”

  “We’re fogging up the windows. People will notice that.”

  He chuckled and drew back. “Maybe we should go upstairs and have some coffee or something, then.”

  She felt the rough texture of his cheek against her palm. “Then what kind of fantasies would you be having?”

  “I’d probably start imagining that we were right here, alone in a dark car, with nobody around.” Slowly he unbuttoned the front of her coat. “I suppose I’d picture myself touching you like this.” He curved his fingers around her breast.

  Even through the weight of her sweater and the lacy barrier of her bra, Amanda could feel his caress in every nerve. “Jordan.”

  He moved his hand beneath the sweater and then, to the accompaniment of a little gasp of surprised pleasure from Amanda, beneath the bra. Cupping her warm breast, he rolled the nipple gently between his fingers. “I’d be thinking about doing this, no doubt.”

  Amanda was squirming a little, and her breath was quickening. “Damn it, Jordan—this isn’t funny. Someone could walk by!”

  “Not likely,” he murmured, touching his mouth to hers as he continued to fondle her.

  Although she knew she should, Amanda couldn’t bring herself to push his hand away. What he was doing felt too good. “S-someone might see—they’d think…”

  Jordan bent his head to kiss the pulse point at the base of her throat. “They’d think we were necking. And they’d be right.” Satisfied that he’d set one nipple to throbbing, he proceeded to attend the other. “Ummm. Where were you on prom night, lady?”

  “Out with somebody like you,” Amanda gasped breathlessly.

  Jordan chuckled and continued nibbling at her throat. She felt the snap on her jeans pop, heard the faint whisper of the zipper. “Did he do this?”

  The windows were definitely fogging up. “No…” Amanda moaned as he slid his fingers down her warm abdomen to find what they sought.

  “Lift up your sweater,” Jordan said. “I want to taste you.”

  Amanda whimpered a halfhearted protest even as she obeyed, but when she felt his mouth close over a distended nipple, she groaned out loud and entangled her fingers in his hair. In the meantime he continued the other delicious mischief, causing Amanda to fidget on the seat.

  She ran her hands down his back, then up to his hair again in a frantic search for a place to touch him and make him feel what she was feeling. His name fell repeatedly from her lips in a breathless, senseless litany of passion.

  Just as the ferry horn sounded, Amanda arched
her back and cried out in release. Her body buckled over and over again against Jordan’s hand before she sagged into the seat, temporarily soothed. Gradually her breathing steadied.

  “Rat,” she said when her good sense returned. She righted her bra and pulled her sweater down while Jordan zipped and snapped her jeans. Not two seconds after that, the first of the passengers returning from the upper deck walked past the car and waved.

  Amanda’s cheeks glowed as Jordan drove off the ferry minutes later.

  “Relax, Mandy,” he said, shoving a tape into the slot on the dashboard. The car filled with soft music. “I’m on your side, remember?”

  She ran her tongue over her lips and turned in the seat to look at him. Her body was still quivering like a resonating string on some exotic instrument. “I’m not angry—just surprised. Nobody’s ever been able to make me forget where I was.”

  “Good,” Jordan replied, turning the Porsche onto a paved road lined with towering pine trees. “I’d be something less than thrilled if that was a regular thing with you.”

  Amanda gazed out the window for a moment, then looked back at Jordan. “Is it a regular thing with you?” she asked, almost in a whisper.

  He looked at her, but she couldn’t read his expression in the darkness. “There have been women since Becky, if that’s what you mean. But if it’ll make you feel better, none of them has ever had quite the same effect on me that you do. And I’ve never taken any of them to the island.”

  Amanda didn’t know whether she felt better or not. She peered at his towering house as they pulled into the driveway, but all she could see was a shadowy shape and a lot of dark windows.

  The garage door opened at the push of a button, and Jordan pulled in and got out, then turned on the lights before coming around to open Amanda’s door for her. Gripping the handle of her suitcase in one hand, the other hand pressed to the small of her back, he escorted her through a side door and into a spacious, well-designed kitchen.

  Amanda stopped when he set the suitcase down on the floor. “Did you live here with Becky?” she blurted. She’d known she wouldn’t have the courage to ask if she waited too long.

  “No,” Jordan answered, taking the overnight case from her hand and setting it on the counter.