Flash and Fire

by Marie Ferrarella

  “Just ‘The Club.’ They never took the time to name it. They were too busy making the sweetest music outside of New Orleans.”

  If he closed his eyes, he could still hear it. Sitting there in the smoky, darkened room, watching wearied black men suddenly turn young before his eyes as they played their beloved, battered instruments, was one of the more pleasant memories he carried with him. Perhaps the only one.

  She shook her head. “You just don’t look like the type to enjoy jazz.”

  He took a sip of his drink. “I told you before, I don’t typecast well. There are a lot of different sides to me, Mandy.”

  She was beginning to believe that. And all the sides were gathering together, confusing the hell out of her. She had no idea how to defend herself against him, or even if she really wanted to.

  She took another long drink and found herself staring down at the bottom of the glass. When she set it down, Pierce refilled it.

  Remember Jeff.

  Yes, she remembered Jeff, and in remembering knew she wanted to walk away from this—whatever “this” was turning out to be—before any damaging entanglements resulted. Amanda wished that there were a way to place all her emotions and hormones into a bottle and push a stopper into it.

  Instead, here they were, fizzing, suddenly begging to be set free.

  Pierce laughed softly at her comment. “I bet you also thought I only went to places like the Sin Pit.”

  She flushed, then shrugged. After all, it was the image he projected. “It does fit.”

  He leaned back, enjoying the way the candlelight played across her face. “To be a good investigative reporter, you have to be part chameleon. You have to be able to fit in everywhere, into every situation, and not call attention to yourself.”

  Her head was spinning a bit. She shook it slightly. For a moment, she set down her glass. “I can’t see you not calling attention to yourself.”

  His wide, sensual grin made her pulse quicken. Or was that the third glass of champagne? “Why, Amanda Foster, is that a compliment?”

  He was gorgeous and they both knew it. He didn’t need her to tell him that.

  Amanda lowered her eyes to her plate. It might be her imagination, but she felt that when she looked at him, he could read her thoughts.

  “Just an observation; don’t let it go to your head.” Like the champagne was going to hers. She began to eat again. “The lobster’s very good.”

  He’d hardly been aware of eating his portion. Amanda seemed to be displacing everything tonight. “They have it flown in fresh every day.”

  Pierce had ordered for both of them without letting her look at the menu. She had assumed that it was a male thing and had let him have this small round. It cost nothing. The same, she knew, couldn’t be said about the dinner.

  “It must cost a fortune.”

  He nodded. “It does, but the rest of my needs are simple.” He considered making love to be both a simple, basic pleasure and a necessity of life.

  She managed to curtail the shiver that suddenly danced over her spine. “Then they don’t pertain to me.”

  He made no comment, other than to say, “You are anything but simple, Amanda.” He set aside his fork and curved his fingers around the stem of his glass. “What made you get into this game?”

  She wasn’t sure if he was referring to her career or the fact that they were here together when she’d sworn they would never go out. She took a guess. “News?”

  “News.”

  Talking about herself always made Amanda feel awkward. Yet words came so easily tonight. She shrugged. “Maybe because I wanted to be where things were happening.” She smiled to herself as she lifted the glass to her lips. “Maybe it was because I wanted to rebel against what my father wanted me to be.”

  He leaned forward a little. The intimate atmosphere intensified. “That would be the respected Henry A. Foster, wouldn’t it?”

  It didn’t surprise her that he knew. She was beginning to take some things about him for granted. “You’ve been snooping again.”

  Pierce inclined his head, his eyes on her. “Guilty. Occupational hazard.” He found himself enjoying this conversation. He rarely had them with the women he took out. There was usually too much happening to talk beyond monosyllabic responses. “What did he want you to be?”

  If she tried, she could still hear the sermons. She didn’t try. “A lawyer, like him. He wanted me to be his clone.”

  Pierce laughed softly. “I never met the man. Does he have gorgeous legs, too?”

  Laughed bubbled within her as she visualized her father in shorts. He’d never be caught in anything so undignified. Amanda wiped the tears that had come to her eyes as she caught her breath.

  “No, as a matter of fact, his are slightly bowed.” She only knew because her mother had told her.

  There was no reason why her laughter should make him feel good. But it did. “Sure he’s your father?”

  “Oh yes,” she said solemnly. An image of her mother rose in her mind. “My mother would have been too terrified to cheat on him.” She took another sip and sighed. They had never been particularly close, but she missed her mother at times. And felt saddened at the waste the woman’s life had been.

  “Although God knows she should have left him long before she died.”

  He wanted to tell her he was sorry that her mother had died, but he couldn’t find the words and could only imagine the sorrow. He’d never been close enough to anyone to mourn their passing.

  “Sounds like your father’s a real winner.”

  Bitterness curved her mouth. “Only in court. Winning means everything to my father. Winning and prestige.” She drained her glass again. The words came easily. “And let’s not forget money.”

  “Let’s not.” He poured her only half a glass this time. “Nothing wrong with money. Covers a lot of pain.”

  Her hands curved around the glass as she looked at it, unseeing. “Not always.”

  He hadn’t meant to stir bitter recollections. Pierce’s tone shifted as he prodded her along. “So, you rebelled against Daddy, went to college and became a communications major—“

  “Journalist,” she corrected. Following his lead, Amanda’s tone lightened. She didn’t like thinking about her father. It generated too many bad memories. She laughed softly, then lifted her glass in a mock toast. “I was going to be Brenda Starr.”

  “What happened?” he asked, amused.

  “Brooke Shields got there first. Besides.” She grinned broadly. The champagne allowed her to laugh at her own seriousness. “I don’t care for Black Orchids.”

  He recalled the strip. It had been years since he had read it, but some things stood out in his memory. “But the man in the eye patch was intriguing.”

  She sighed. She’d cast Whitney in that role when she was thirteen. “Yes, he was.”

  He liked the way her features softened when her

  eyes turned wistful and dreamy. “Why, Amanda, you’re a romantic.”

  There was no denying that. Or the fact that she now considered the word synonymous with fool.

  She ran the tip of her finger along the rim of the glass. “I paid for that.”

  It wasn’t hard to guess. “Ex-husband?”

  “Yes.” She nodded, attempting to keep thoughts of Jeff at bay. But the comparisons were difficult to avoid. “He was a lot like you. Tall, good-looking, had a silver tongue.”

  “I hate him already.” His tone was light, but he found he didn’t care for the comparison. Not to someone she so obviously disliked.

  Amanda sighed, distancing herself from the past. “So did I, eventually.” But at least he had given her Christopher.

  “He cheated on you.” He could see it in Amanda’s eyes.

  She nodded. “Almost from the start.” Her glass was empty. She moved it toward Pierce for a refill. “Hell, maybe even during the wedding reception. He felt it was his God-given right to seduce anything female that moved.” She couldn’
t help the bitterness that entered her voice. “He thought I should tolerate it.”

  Pierce poured only a drop into her glass. He was getting soft, he thought. But he didn’t want her drunk. He wanted her to remember everything about tonight. “Why did you?”

  “I didn’t.” Frowning, Amanda husbanded the little bit of champagne in her glass. “Once I found out. Really found out.” She laughed at herself as she recalled how vulnerable she’d been, how willing to forgive and forget, until the tally had grown too large. “By then, I was pregnant. He wanted me to have an abortion.” Her eyes grew sharp as the loathing she felt for Jeff surfaced. “He said kids didn’t figure into his way of life.”

  He was beginning to understand how her mind operated. “So you left him.”

  She raised her chin with pride. “So fast, his head spun.”

  “He didn’t come after you?” He would have, Pierce thought. Maybe even on his knees. The thought unnerved him and he banished it quickly, blaming it on the champagne. Except he hadn’t been drinking that much.

  “I bought him off,” she said matter-of-factly. She was past hurting. “I gave him the house, the bank account, everything.”

  He couldn’t picture a woman feeling like that, giving up tangible possessions. The women he was used to could be bought. Marsha was always taking.

  “What about your father? Couldn’t you have gone to him and had him make some sort of a better arrangement for you?”

  Her father would have liked that, she thought, to have her come begging to him. It would have made him feel even more self-righteous than he already did.

  “He would have turned me down and said ‘I told you so’ in the bargain. So I gave Jeff everything just to get out of the marriage.”

  “You wanted your freedom that much?”

  “Yes.” The answer was vehement.

  He lifted his glass to her. “We have that in common. I like my freedom, too,” Pierce said, feeling the necessity to reiterate an obvious fact.

  “I know.”

  Amanda looked down at her glass. It was empty again. She debated having more, then shook her head as Pierce raised a brow. “No, don’t, I think I’ve had too much already.” And talked way too much to a man I don’t know.

  He made no comment. Instead, he drew back his chair. “Ready to go home?”

  She nodded.

  Pierce signaled for the check.

  Chapter Twenty

  She assumed that he was taking her home. Since the neighborhood was familiar to her as they drove, Amanda didn’t bother to pay strict attention to the road. It wasn’t until Pierce turned down a street and traveled about a mile through a tree-lined development she didn’t recognize that Amanda realized the evening was far from over.

  Straightening, Amanda could feel the tension entering her body. She didn’t like her compliance being taken for granted. When Pierce drove into a complex that bore the large sign Sandpiper Apartments, Amanda looked at him accusingly.

  “This isn’t my house.”

  Pierce guided his car into the carport located beneath the number eighty-nine. “I can see why they chose you to anchor the five o’clock news team.”

  He turned off the ignition. Amanda dug in stubbornly. “What if I said I didn’t want to get out of the car?”

  He turned toward her and leaned his arm on the back of her seat. His breath, warm and enticing, floated along her face.

  “Then you’d be lying. C’mon, Mandy, you’re curious. Curious about the way I live. About what it would be like between us.”

  He was right. She was curious. More than curious. But she tried to hold out even though it seemed like a losing battle. She felt like one of the volunteers at the Alamo, trying to hold off Santana’s advancing armies. Pride demanded that she had to at least try.

  “I know what it would be like. Like a magic show. You’d do it with mirrors. All flash and fire and no substance. And over with within the hour.”

  “Maybe.” His eyes glinted with humor at her choice of words. “Maybe not. Up to you to find out.”

  Pierce got out of the car, rounded the rear to her door, and put out his hand, waiting.

  The debate was short. Amanda opened her door and placed her hand in his. Her heart lodged in her throat as she walked with him the short distance to his ground-floor apartment.

  This is crazy. The refrain beat in her temple over and over again.

  Pierce smiled to himself as he unlocked the door, then turned to look at her. Her eyes were large, though she maintained a stoic expression. She was afraid, he thought. Afraid he was going to jump on her as soon as the door was closed. Satisfaction at having her here mingled with a sense of responsibility. He didn’t want her afraid of him or of what was going to happen. He wanted her to anticipate it with the same sort of barely harnessed excitement that was churning within him.

  He held the door open, but barred her way for a moment. Amanda looked at him quizzically.

  “I won’t deny that you’ve been preying on my mind, or that I’ve been circling around you like a reporter looking for the right angle to a story. But I’ve never forced myself on anyone. What happens here tonight, or doesn’t happen, is strictly all up to you. Sex is too enjoyable a thing to turn into a tug-of-war. And I don’t have to try it to know that there’s no satisfaction in rape.”

  It was an easy enough thing to say. People said things all the time they didn’t mean. Amanda looked at his eyes. And believed him.

  But the tension wouldn’t abate.

  She stepped inside his apartment and looked around. It almost appeared unlived in. There was a minimum of furniture in the apartment. A sofa and a recliner were in the living room, along with a floor lamp and a long, sleek coffee table. Just to her left was a minuscule kitchen with a table and two chairs. She imagined the bedroom lay just beyond that.

  There were no knickknacks, no newspapers strewn around. No clutter of any sort. From where she stood, she could see that there were no dishes in the sink. She hadn’t expected him to be neat.

  “It’s not a mess.”

  As he shut the door, he asked amusedly, “You were anticipating one?”

  She laid her purse on the coffee table. “Men generally don’t clean up after themselves.”

  He studied her as he arched a brow. “Is this just a working theory, groundless female prejudice, or do you speak from wide, firsthand experience?”

  She was very sensitive about her presence in his apartment. “I don’t sleep around.”

  “Sleep has nothing to do with it.” Anger leaped into her eyes. She couldn’t be teased right now, he realized.

  Pierce laid his hands on her shoulders, gentling her as one would a mare that had been spooked by shadows that weren’t there.

  “And yes, I know you don’t.” Lifting his hands, he released her and took a step back. “As to your theory, you might be right, I don’t know.” He indicated the living room. There was a shelf she hadn’t seen from the doorway. Books were alphabetically arranged by title. “I don’t own much. What I have, I keep neat so I can find it. Saves time.”

  He took a step toward the kitchen. There was a bottle of wine chilling in the refrigerator. “Get you a drink?”

  She was tempted. The euphoric feeling she’d experienced in the restaurant had all but evaporated. Having a drink now would relieve the renewed tension she was feeling. If nothing else, it would give her something to blame her mistake on later. But she didn’t want her senses clouded any further than she thought they already were.

  Taking a seat on the edge of the sofa, she shook her head. “I think I’ve had too much already.”

  He joined her, making himself comfortable. Making her uncomfortable as he trailed his fingers idly along her bare back. It felt too good.

  “I noticed. Your smile’s a little crooked,” he observed. Amanda shifted away. For the moment, he remained where he was. “And you’re talking to me.”

  She didn’t understand. She thought of the ballpark and the
grocery store. “I’ve talked to you before.”

  He shook his head and lazily began to let his fingers drift over her back again. This time, she didn’t jolt, didn’t move. She absorbed.

  “No, really talked. To me, not at me.”

  He was mesmerizing her with the light, hypnotic pattern of his fingers along her spine. She knew she should be leaving, but she had no strength to rise to her feet. Amanda frowned.

  He cocked his head as he leaned forward to look at her. “What’s the matter?”

  Amanda pressed her lips together. “I’m having a nice time.”

  He laughed softly, his fingers barely making contact as they moved along her shoulder. “Is that so bad?”

  She wouldn’t have admitted this, but the champagne had taken down the fourth wall and her inhibitions with it. Perhaps the euphoria hadn’t completely disappeared.

  “I didn’t want to. Not with you.”

  In an odd way, he understood. Because he didn’t want to enjoy her as much as he did. Enjoyment led to being lax, and then complications set it. He didn’t want a woman cluttering up his life.

  “I see.”

  “Besides”—she shifted again, but this time it was her conscience that made her uncomfortable, not his nearness or his drifting hand—“I feel guilty enjoying myself when Whitney’s facing possible indictment on charges of fraud and embezzlement. When he might be facing a prison term,” she whispered. Her father was a good lawyer, the best, but juries were unpredictable.

  He felt jealousy stirring again. “What is it between you and Granger?”

  The answer was simple. “He was nice to me.”

  Pierce teased the strap off her shoulder. Amanda pushed it back. “Is that all it takes?”

  “I’m serious.” As Pierce watched, Amanda seemed to withdraw into herself at the mention of her father’s name. “Growing up as Henry Foster’s daughter wasn’t a piece of cake, even though I had every material thing any girl my age could have wanted. A car, charge plates, everything.” Her bitterness was tinged with a sadness that seemed to vibrate right through him.

  His eyes never left her face as she spoke. “What was the problem?”