by Jackie Black
Now that she no longer had to wear wigs, she intended to let her hair grow long, but meanwhile it formed a black, loosely curled halo around her delicately carved features.
“You’re as beautiful as ever,” Ferris said fondly. “More so, in fact. The last couple of years have put something new in those lovely violet eyes of yours. You’re not a little girl anymore.”
Elizabeth grinned, showing her even white teeth. “I haven’t been a little girl for longer than two years, Uncle Ferris,” she teased him, “but thanks for the compliment. It’s nice to be able to be my—”
Some small sound behind her made Elizabeth break off and turn her head in the direction of the bookcases that lined the back wall of Ferris’s office. And what she saw there—or rather the person she saw there—drained the color from her smooth complexion, made her large violet eyes widen with incredulity, and kept her mouth open in an expression of shocked disbelief.
“I’m sorry, Lissa,” Ferris said smoothly, a pleased expression on his face as he saw that his goddaughter—and his fellow physician and friend, judging by the open pleasure in Sonny Strotherton’s blue eyes as he stared at Elizabeth—were obviously making an impression on one another. Ferris was pleased that he’d had the idea of introducing these two.
“This is Dr. Sonny Strotherton, an internist friend of mine,” Ferris performed the introductions. “Sonny, this is Elizabeth Farrell, my goddaughter, former patient, and soon-to-be medical student at Harvard.”
Sonny inclined his head. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Ms. Farrell,” he said. He wondered whether he should be flattered that she was staring at him as though she couldn’t believe her eyes—and very lovely eyes they were, too . . . in fact there was something vaguely familiar about them—or whether his ego was about to receive an unaccustomed jolt. He hoped he was making as good an impression on Elizabeth Farrell as she was making on him. She was the best- looking woman he’d met in a very long time . . . possibly ever.
Elizabeth’s mind was boiling with horror at this turn of events. Somehow, she managed to mumble a similar polite greeting in a faint voice, but she was secretly steeling herself to hear Sonny Strotherton say something like, “You look familiar to me, Ms. Farrell. Haven’t we met-before?”
“I hope you don’t mind, Lissa,” Ferris was saying, and Elizabeth forced herself to turn her attention to him, though she could barely focus on his words. “But I invited Sonny to join us for lunch. He and 1 are working on a paper together concerning the differences in juvenile and adult mononucleosis, and between our two busy schedules, we seldom have time to get together as often as we’d like.”
Elizabeth swallowed against the panic clogging her throat. “No, I don’t mind, Uncle Ferris,” she said weakly. “In fact, if you and Dr. . . . Sto . . . ah, Stro ...”
“Call me Sonny,” Sonny broke in, giving her a charming smile while he wondered whether it was something about him that was making Elizabeth Farrell stutter, or whether she had a speech impediment.
Elizabeth managed to nod, and quickly turned her eyes away from Sonny Strotherton’s handsome—and altogether too familiar—face to look at her Uncle Ferris again.
“What I mean to say is,” she forced herself to speak more slowly, “if you two would like to have lunch alone, I don’t mind in the least.
I have so many things to do to get ready for the spring semester anyway that—”
“Don’t be silly!” Ferris Cabot scoffed, taking her arm to guide her toward the door while he gestured at Sonny with his other hand.
“What two men with any sense would forgo your delightful company?”
“Certainly not I,” Sonny said smoothly, meaning it, as he put the medical book he’d been thumbing through back into the bookcase and came to join the other two at the door. “I’d much prefer to look at you across the table, Ms. Farrell, than at Ferris.”
Ferris laughed heartily, and as Elizabeth glanced up at the pleased look on her godfather’s face, it finally dawned on her that he had set this whole thing up deliberately. Her misguided godfather was doing a little matchmaking, God forbid!
“Call her ‘Lissa,’ Sonny,” Ferris invited on Elizabeth’s behalf, much to her dismay. “All of us who are close to her use her nickname, and I’m sure the two of you are going to become fast friends.”
Elizabeth involuntarily met Sonny’s gaze, and she felt a weak sensation quaver through her as she saw that his expression was warmly amused. He raised his brows at her, silently asking her permission to use her nickname rather than taking Ferris’s invitation at face value.
“Ah . . . yes, of course,” she managed to get out in an approximation of her normal voice. “Call me Lissa.”
“Thank you, Lissa,” Sonny replied in a tone as warm as his look. He was growing more enchanted by the beautiful Lissa Farrell by the moment. After less than five minutes in her company, he was already making plans to ask her out, and without any of the uncertainty he usually felt when meeting a new woman.
“Come along, you two,” Ferris said, pulling Elizabeth through the door of his office. “I have to be back for appointments by two, so we’d better be on our way.”
In an agony of nervous apprehension, Elizabeth allowed her godfather to pull her out of his office, down the hall, and out into the lobby.
“I’ll be back in an hour or so, Iris,” Ferris informed his receptionist/nurse.
“Yes, Doctor,” Iris replied, her shrewd eyes flitting between Elizabeth and Sonny speculativeiy.
Outside the building, Ferris opened the front passenger door of his gray Mercedes for Elizabeth, and though she would much have preferred to sit in the back rather than be put on view for Sonny Strotherton, there wasn’t much point in protesting, so she climbed in and sat stiffly facing forward while Sonny got in the backseat and Ferris came around to get in the driver’s seat.
“I thought we’d go to a new little French restaurant that’s just opened nearby,” Ferris said smoothly as he started the car. “You can let us know how it compares with the real thing in Paris, Lissa,” he added, letting her know that he hadn’t let Sonny Strotherton in on her secret.
His words would have made Elizabeth relax if she’d had no previous contact with Sonny, but as it was, she wasn’t reassured that the makeup and costume she’d worn as the Vixen had been good enough to prevent Sonny from tumbling at some point to the fact that Elizabeth Farrell and the Vixen were one and the same.
She merely gave Ferris a faint smile instead of answering, but Sonny spoke up and she was faced with telling an out-and-out lie, something she abhorred doing.
“Oh, have you traveled abroad extensively then, Lissa?” he asked.
Elizabeth cleared her throat, but fortunately, Ferris answered for her in a more skillful way than she could have managed herself.
“Lissa’s father was Daniel Farrell, the noted pediatrician, Sonny. Did you ever meet him?”
“No, I never had the pleasure,” Sonny said gently, “but I’m well- aware of the excellent reputation he had.”
Elizabeth involuntarily softened a little at Sonny’s tone of voice, which she knew was for her benefit, and his praise of her father.
“Well, Lissa nursed him through his last year,” Ferris explained quietly, “and after we lost him, she needed to get away for a while.”
Elizabeth glanced at Ferris gratefully when Sonny murmured, “I see,” and dropped the subject of her fictitious European travels.
They arrived at the restaurant then, which was reassuringly unpretentious, and when the three of them were seated at a table and were looking at menus, Elizabeth couldn’t help peeking over the top of hers for a closer look at Sonny. She had avoided focusing on him too closely when he might have looked back at her.
He was as devastatingly handsome as she remembered, and as her gaze drifted to his well-formed mouth, which was both masculinely sexy and somehow endearingly vulnerable as well, she felt a flood of heat suffuse her as she recalled the kiss they’d shared in he
r dressing room.
At that instant, Sonny glanced up from his menu, and as Elizabeth hastily raised her gaze from his mouth to the clear ice-blue of his eyes for a second before she glanced back down at her own menu, she couW feel an uncontrollable blush staining her cheeks.
Sonny stared at her a moment, stunned by the shaft of arousal that had filled him when he’d caught Lissa staring at his mouth with that curious look of longing on her beautiful face, and by what he’d seen in her eyes for that split second they’d shared a glance.
He had to force himself to return his gaze to his menu, but he saw nothing of the words printed there for wondering about what was going on inside Lissa Farrell. Was she bold or shy ... a vulnerable young woman or self-confident sophisticate? he wondered, enchanted further by the paradoxical behavior she was exhibiting.
At his age, after years of marriage, he wasn’t sure he wanted to deal with the awkwardness an inexperienced young woman might have in dealing with a full-blown romantic relationship. But on the other hand, it might be rather intriguing to become involved with a woman who could manage to convey innocence while her behavior was maturely satisfying.
“What are you going to have, Lissa?” Ferris looked up from his menu to address her.
Elizabeth hadn’t been able to focus on her menu, but she covered the fact by smiling over the top of it at Ferris and suggesting he choose for her.
“You’ve been here before, so you know what’s good,” she said a great deal more lightly than she felt.
“Green salad and cheese souffle for you then, girl,” Ferris promptly replied. “As I recall, you’ve never liked to eat heavily during the day.”
“True.” Lissa nodded, setting her menu aside and immediately beginning an inspection of the room and the other customers in order to keep her eyes from straying in Sonny’s direction, a temptation that dismayed her.
Have some sense, Lissa, she grimly instructed herself. He may look like the answer to a woman’s prayers and kiss like every fantasy lover you've ever had, but he’s also exactly the sort of man who’ll condemn you on general principles and refuse to take you seriously as a doctor if he ever finds out you were the Vixen ... in fact, he’ll be harder on you than others who think, like him might be, because he’ll hate knowing you know what happened between him and the Vixen.
“Do you enjoy symphony music, Lissa?” Sonny intruded on her thoughts.
Incautiously, she met his gaze for an instant before sliding her eyes to a point beyond his right shoulder.
“Yes, I do,” she admitted reluctantly, hoping he wasn’t on the verge of issuing an invitation.
“You don’t sound very positive about it.” Sonny smiled at her with more charm than Elizabeth was able to resist. Her gaze somehow became focused on his mouth again.
“It would be strange if she didn’t like the symphony,” Ferris interjected with a smile. “Her mother was Amanda Phipps, the concert pianist.”
Sonny, though he’d lost interest in the subject of music the moment Lissa had begun staring at his mouth again, managed to say, in an unconsciously thickening voice, “Wonderful. I’m impressed.”
His words jarred Elizabeth’s concentration on the perfection of his lips, and she frowned as she met his gaze.
“I like all kinds of music,” she said in a coldly repressive way.
Sonny was surprised and confused by her tone. What had he done to set her off, he wondered.
Ferris said, with a slight warning in his tone, “I'm sure Sonny likes other types of music as well, Lissa. Right, Sonny?”
“Sure,” Sonny replied, giving a baffled shrug of his shoulders.
Elizabeth felt embarrassed by her overreaction . . . and she wasn’t even certain why she had spoken as she had. She was grateful that Ferris then engaged Sonny in a conversation about the paper they were writing together, giving her time to sort out her feelings.
Sheer defensiveness, she decided a moment later. He sounded like the sort of snob who considers himself so far above the normal run of humanity that he can only enjoy classical music, classical literature and . . . classical women?
That thought really focused the matter for her and explained her defensiveness. In her dressing room in New York that night several weeks back, she had interpreted Sonny Strotherton’s reaction to the Vixen as contemptuous and superior. And while the act she’d put on for his benefit might partially justify such a reaction on his part, it wasn’t the reaction of a true gentleman, and it had hurt her.
To Elizabeth, a true gentleman was a man such as her father had been ... a man who didn’t judge people harshly and who treated people with gentle, sensitive consideration whatever their station in life or their pattern of living. The only thing she’d ever known him to be intolerant of in people was deliberate cruelty. And while Sonny Strotherton’s somewhat cruel reaction to the Vixen might have been involuntary rather than deliberate, it showed an orientation she couldn’t approve of.
Unaware that she was staring critically at Sonny’s impressive profile until he turned his head and frowned his puzzlement at the look on her face, Elizabeth flushed at being caught staring and looked away.
Perhaps you shouldn't point a finger at his shortcomings, she thought with dry self-mockery, when you're not so good at controlling your own reactions.
During the meal, Elizabeth had no desire to talk and made an effort to concentrate on the conversation between Sonny and Ferris so that she wouldn’t have to think about her ambivalent feelings toward Sonny.
For his part, while Sonny kept one part of his mind on his conversation with Ferris, another part of him was thoroughly confused by Lissa Farrell. He still had every intention of asking her out, of course. But he wasn’t as certain that his invitation would be accepted as he’d been when he’d caught Lissa staring at his mouth with that hint of smoldering sexuality in her violet gaze.
When they arrived back at Ferris’s office and were standing outside his car to say good-bye, Sonny acted on his intention, but not without some trepidation.
“May I drop you somewhere, Lissa?” he asked with warm politeness. “I have my car here,” and he gestured toward a sedate, late- model station wagon parked nearby.
Elizabeth hesitated, trapped by her aversion to Boston traffic. She had come to Ferris’s office by taxi.
“Go along with him, Lissa,” Ferris teased her. “I can vouch for his character.”
Strangely, both Elizabeth and Sonny colored at Ferris’s words, both thinking of a kiss exchanged in a New York club’s dressing room, though, of course, neither of them dreamed their thoughts were running along the same lines.
“Ah ... all right,” Elizabeth agreed with strained graciousness. “Unless it’s out of your way?” she hastily grasped at any straw to get out of being alone with Sonny.
Ferris snorted. “He only lives a few blocks from your place, Lissa,” he said, “and his office is farther east of there, so you won’t be putting him out.”
Elizabeth was dismayed to hear that Sonny Strotherton lived near her, and she found herself wishing that her Uncle Ferris wasn’t quite so determined to be helpful in keeping her and Sonny together.
“Fine,” she said rather stiffly and made herself give Ferris a hug and a kiss on the cheek in a natural manner. “You and Aunt Sarah come to dinner soon, Uncle Ferris. You know you’re always welcome.”
“We will, honey,” Ferris replied. “And we’ll try to make it before the spring semester starts. Somehow, knowing you and your study habits, I don’t think you’ll be interested in having dinner guests after that.”
Elizabeth smiled faintly and stood back as Sonny and Ferris shook hands, then stiffened when Sonny took her arm to guide her toward his car. “This way,” he said unnecessarily, a smile on his lips because he found touching Lissa Farrell, even through layers of clothing, very pleasing.
Elizabeth forced herself not to pull her arm out of his grip, but she was grateful when they reached his car and he unlocked the door for her.
But she found the fact that he held on to her arm until after she was seated in the passenger seat alarming, though not quite so alarming as the fact that, despite her best intentions, she had liked walking close to his tall body and having him hold on to her so protectively ... or was it possessively?
“This spell of warm weather has been nice, hasn’t it?” Sonny spoke casually as he pulled out of the parking space and headed for the street. “We’ll have more snow and cold soon enough, I expect.”
“Yes ... I expect so,” Elizabeth replied stiffly, wishing it weren’t so far to her house, wishing Sonny weren’t going to learn where she lived as a result of this ride, wishing she weren’t so physically drawn to this man.
“I can’t believe we’ve lived in the same city and moved in the same circles all these years without meeting one another,” Sonny said, projecting a note into his voice that said he regretted the lapse.
“Oh ... it happens,” Elizabeth replied, wondering what Sonny would say if he ever found out that they had met before, and what the circumstances of those meetings had been.
Sonny glanced over, and seeing a frown on Lissa’s lovely face, he gave a silent sigh, wondering what he’d done this time to provoke her.
“Lissa, are you annoyed with me about something?” he tackled the matter head on.
Elizabeth stiffened inside. “Why ... no ... of course not,” she said. What else could she say without revealing why she was annoyed with him and thereby giving herself away?
“Well, good,” Sonny said with a trace of dryness in his voice. “I’m not aware of having done anything to make you angry, but one never knows.”
Elizabeth suppressed a smile, thinking, No., one doesn ’it . . . and I hope you never find out what it is you’ve done.
“Back at the restaurant, I had a purpose in mind when I asked you if you liked the symphony,” Sonny went on in a warmer tone, making Elizabeth stiffen inside again. When she didn’t say anything, Sonny continued speaking. “I have tickets for a concert this weekend. It’s being held to raise money for the symphony. Would you like to come with me?”