by Donna Ball
Meg busily scanned the radio channels. "I've eaten, thanks."
Dancer hoisted herself onto the corner of the desk, swinging her legs, regarding Meg frankly. "You can't let 'em get to you, you know."
Meg twisted another dial. "Nobody's getting to me."
"It happens all the time. Some guy dumps all over you, treats you like trash, you feel like trash, pretty soon you start thinking you are trash... There's only one thing to do," she said decisively. "You've got to perk yourself up, give yourself a treat, do something fun, you know?"
"Oh, Dancer, for heaven's sake—"
"I know just the thing. It always picks me up.'' She swung down from the desk, pushed aside Joe's papers, pens and earphones, and before Meg knew what she was doing, Dancer was unloading the contents of her gargantuan purse all over the desk.
"Fix yourself up," she said. "Hair, nails, makeup. Fuss over yourself, give yourself a little attention. It'll make you feel like a million bucks, I promise." And she grinned. "Won't hurt your sex life any, either."
"Dancer, will you cut it out?" Meg tried to twist away as Dancer grabbed for the pins that bound back her hair. "The last thing in the world I need is—"
"Wow, you have pretty hair. I always thought you did, but who can tell? Nobody ever sees it."
"Come on, I'm not in the mood for this."
"You know," Dancer confided, "I always thought I'd make a good beautician. Even started to go to beauty college once. But—" she shrugged, tugging open Meg's chignon " —in a place like this, there's not much call for a beauty parlor, you know what I mean?"
Meg grabbed at her hair. "You're making a mess! Stop it."
"I am not. You're going to love it. Say, you don't have anything pretty to wear in that suitcase, do you? We could really knock the guys' eyes out."
Meg let her head fall forward in resignation as Dancer began to pull the tangles out of her hair with a wide-toothed comb. "No, I don't have anything pretty to wear. I don't want to knock anybody's eyes out."
"Well, that's okay. When I'm done you're going to look good enough to eat no matter what you're wearing."
Dancer made a few fluffing motions with the comb around the ends of Meg's hair and stepped back, admiring her handiwork.
Meg looked at her patiently. "All right? Are you finished? Can I put it back the way it was now?"
"No, you can't! It looks great."
"Come on, Dancer, I don't have time for this. I don't want anybody to see me with my hair falling down all over my face."
"So who's going to see you? The place is deserted." She scrambled around on the desk among the contents of her purse. "Wait—just a little eye shadow, and here's the perfect lipstick!"
"This is a place of business, not a pajama party."
"Don't talk. Hold your mouth still."
Meg had no choice as Dancer began to outline her lips with a lip pencil. And Meg had to admit, despite her mood and despite the silliness of it all, that it was kind of fun. She had never done things like this as a girl. She had never had a friend set her hair as they gossiped and giggled into the night, never painted her toenails bright red for a beach party, never even lingered at a department store cosmetics counter trying one fragrance after another. She had always been too busy, too sensible, too... driven. Just as she still was.
"You know," Dancer said, leaning back to examine her work, "you might be a big-shot executive with a lot of people jumping when you snap your fingers, but I bet you'd enjoy it a lot more if you didn't work so hard at it."
"I'm sure you're right." She held up her hand and twisted away in protest as Dancer tried to make one more swipe with the lip pencil.
"I mean, why does life have to be so hard, anyway?" She put the pencil away and examined the contents of an eye-shadow compact critically. "Things happen. Why not just let them?"
"Don't put that junk on my eyes. I'll look like a Halloween witch.''
Dancer rejected the first compact and opened another. "So," she said, loading a small cosmetic brush, "is Red staying here tonight or what?"
"Of course he is. Where else can he go?"
"No, I mean here."
Meg was so taken aback by the question that she forgot to protest as Dancer leaned forward with the cosmetic brush and she instinctively closed her eyes. Adinorack was by no means big, but it had more than an adequate supply of rooms—and beds—for one lone man. There was no reason for Red to spend an uncomfortable night camped out on a concrete floor when he had plenty of time to make other arrangements.
It was simply that, from the first day they had met—literally—they had not slept apart when Red was in town. When he was here, they were together, whether it was on the couch in her office or the bed in her apartment or wherever they happened to be. It had not occurred to her, even now, that he might have other choices.
Which only proved how very, very muddied her thinking was when it came to Red.
"I don't know," Meg replied. "That's his business."
"Well—" Dancer stepped back with a satisfied look to examine her artistic efforts on Meg's eyes "—I'm not one to push a point, but I know where there's a nice warm bed just his size. If you're finished with him, that is."
Meg stared at her, her muscles stiffening, and for a moment she was completely unable to form a reply. And she never knew what she might have said, because at that moment a male voice spoke up behind them.
"Thanks for the offer, Dancer," Red drawled, "but I guess I won't be needing it."
He stood leaning against the doorway, coffee cup in hand, observing them with dry mirth sparking in his eyes. He made his smile perfectly innocent as he pushed away from the doorjamb and strolled inside. "Not that I don't appreciate it," he added, and Meg clamped her lips together as she watched him give Dancer an affectionate pat on the bottom. "But you know how it is." Still smiling, he looked deliberately at Meg and explained, "I don't like to leave my plane."
Five
Red had not intended to seek Meg out or even make his presence known. And the truth was, he had been giving some serious thought to finding another place to wait out the storm—maybe in Maudie's spare room or in the apartment of one of the men who had to work tonight. He had plenty of choices and it was clear to see Meg didn't need—or want—him here.
But then he passed by the open door of the radio room and saw her sitting there, with her hair fluffed out around her shoulders, playing with makeup like a schoolgirl, and the picture entranced him. He rarely saw Meg doing silly things. And he hadn't seen her with her hair down since... since the last time he had taken it down with his own fingers.
Dancer might be a little coarse and had certainly never been known for her sensitivity, but she could be surprisingly tactful when the situation called for it. As Meg sprang to her feet, searching for a napkin with which to scrub the makeup from her face, Dancer began to rake the cosmetics back into her purse.
"Guess I'd better be going," she said. "I'm late for work."
"Yes," Meg agreed tightly, wiping off the lipstick. "You are."
"Be careful crossing the street," Red advised. "It's a bear out there."
Dancer paused by the door to give him a grin, which he couldn't help returning. Then she waved gaily and was gone.
"I never liked you in makeup," Red commented as Meg tossed the lipstick-soiled napkin into the trash.
"And I never cared what you liked." She found a rubber band on the desk and pulled back her hair, fastening it into a loose ponytail at the nape.
"I noticed that."
He took the place on the corner of the desk Dancer had vacated and sipped his coffee. "So," he inquired, eyes twinkling mildly, "are you finished with me?"
When Meg looked up, his face was less than six inches from hers, and his eyes, it seemed, even closer. He hadn't bothered to tuck his shirt in after... Meg jerked her eyes away quickly before the memories caused her to do something foolish, such as blush. That meant nothing. Red often went around for days at a time without tucki
ng in his shirt or even buttoning it over the thermal knit undershirt. Meg used to find that sexy.
She still did.
She said abruptly, "What do you want?"
"Gilly said you were running this place by yourself."
"I should have been more specific when I told him to send somebody back."
"It's not like you to be so careless. You must've had something else on your mind."
Meg's teeth ached with the effort of biting back words. She was not going to be drawn into this. She was not.
She began to straighten the papers Dancer had disarranged. When she caught the edge of one that Red was sitting on, he refused to move, and when she gave it a mighty jerk, it tore in half.
"Temper, temper," he admonished. He stood up, retrieved the other half of the paper and handed it to her. "I brought back some blankets," he went on, "some canned stew and a case of beer. If you want anything else, you're going to have to get it yourself."
Meg sucked in her breath through her teeth and when she released it found she had nothing to say. Seeing to the supplies was her job. She had forgotten, and Red had stepped in to cover the oversight. She couldn't be angry at him. He had done her a favor. Although she didn't want any favors from him, he had no right to do favors for her, it wasn't his responsibility anymore.
She said,''Good thinking, ace. A case of beer is just what we need to get us through the night."
He shrugged. "Like I said, if you want more, get it yourself."
A gust of wind rattled the metal shutters that protected the windows, and it had hardly died down before another one gathered force and screeched around the corner of the building. Meg suppressed a shudder. She hated the sound of the wind, and it looked as though the storm had arrived.
She glanced worriedly toward the front door. "How is it out there?"
"Just your typical little spring blizzard. Starting to snow."
"I shouldn't have let the guys go. They're going to get stuck over there."
"They know how to watch the weather. They'll be back."
Red went over to the window and turned the crank that lifted the outdoor shutter. He was looking at the hangar, a leftover from the military post, which was made of sheet metal and was the flimsiest part of the building.
"That hangar's been here for twenty years," Meg said impatiently. "It's not going to blow away now just because your plane's parked in it."
"The way my luck's going today, it just might."
She decided it might be best not to respond to that and instead sat down at the desk and picked up the radio microphone. She spent a few moments checking in with stations down the line, and the news was not encouraging. The heaviest damage was from the winds, but drifts up to eight feet high were reported. It was beginning to look as though they would be stuck here a lot longer than overnight.
When Meg signed off she sat there for a moment, sipping coffee, trying to remember if there was anything she had overlooked. Thanks to Carstone, Adinorack was far better equipped to weather a storm, than most other settlements of its size; thanks to Meg's emergency preparedness program everything had been done that could be done. Now there was nothing left to do but wait.
She hated that.
Red said, "That's my coffee."
Meg had not realized he was standing over her until he spoke, and his voice startled her. So did the sight of his thighs leaning against the desk beside her, close enough to caress without even lifting her hand. She set the coffee cup down with a thump. "Go find something to do, will you?"
"I thought I was."
"You're in my way."
"Like I was at Maudie's?"
Meg couldn't believe he had said that. The words hit her like a broadside blow, first flaming hot, then cold, then gripping her with a paralysis of hurt and shock that left her speechless.
She pushed up from the desk and he caught her shoulders, turning her to him. There was no warmth in his eyes, no seduction, just a bitter, calculating gleam. "Come on, baby," he said. "We've got the place to ourselves, nothing to do. We should be able to find a way to pass the time."
Blind with fury, she struck out at him with all the strength her arm possessed, but he was used to her moves and the blow glanced off his shoulder harmlessly. Meg broke away, her eyes glittering.
"You had to say it, didn't you? You just couldn't let it go!"
"Damn right I couldn't," he returned. His voice was tight with anger and contempt. "I guess that makes me human. But you wouldn't know about that, would you?"
Red didn't know how it had happened; he never did. But suddenly it was there, rage flaming between them like a brushfire, a spontaneous combustion of frustration and hurt, hateful words, low blows, each of them grabbing for any weapon in their considerable arsenal with which to wound the other. He hadn't come in here to start a fight, but he must have known he wouldn't leave until he had done so. And he wasn't sorry. Damn it, he never was.
She forced a harsh laugh. "So that's it! You're feeling used, abused, neglected. Next time I'll try to remember to spend as much time stroking your precious male ego as I do your—"
"You've got a filthy mouth on you, lady."
"It comes naturally after living with a sewer rat for two years."
"Go for the jugular, Meg," he taunted. "God knows you know where it is. You've had enough practice."
Meg looked at him for a moment, her fists clenched and her chest heaving, and it took all the effort at her command to keep her voice even. "Oh, I know where it is, all right. I'm just not sure it's worth my time."
She started to push past him but he grabbed her arm. "What's the matter, Meg? Losing your edge?"
She jerked away. "The only thing I'm losing is you, and it's long overdue.''
"You could have fooled me about that an hour ago," he jeered. "I never saw a woman less eager to lose a man. Hell, if I could find more women who wanted to get rid of me that badly I'd be—"
"You just can't take it, can you? You just can't deal with the fact that a woman can be just as nonchalant about sex as a man can. That's what this is all about! What an enlightening experience this must be for you! It's different when it's you who's the one forgotten about the minute you pull your pants up, isn't it? Not much fun when you're the one who's tossed aside like yesterday's newspaper!''
He grabbed her shoulders when she tried to push by him again, whirling her around, gripping her hard. He could feel fury pulsing in his head.''What the hell are you talking about? I never treated you like that!"
"You did it every time you left me to go up in your damn airplane!" she cried.
Red had no answer for that. He hadn't expected it, it caught him off guard, and he had no answer. And that only made him angrier.
She was right. Everything she said was right and that infuriated him. Her eyes were glittering and her face was flushed and her taut muscles were straining beneath his hands and he wanted to shake her, he wanted to kiss her... He wanted to kiss her until she melted like wax in his arms. He wanted to caress her the way only he knew how to do, to lower her to the floor and remind her how different it once had been, to love as only they knew how to love. He wanted it so badly that his jaw ached and his chest burned and he hated himself for it.
He released her arms abruptly and turned away. "God," he said on a breath, "we're sick. Both of us."
Meg had to lean against the desk to support her trembling legs. She felt drained, seared, every nerve raw and every muscle throbbing. Her own hateful words and his echoed in her head, and the memory of his face when he looked as though he didn't know whether he wanted to hit her or kiss her and she, in turn, did not know which she preferred... We're destroying each other, she thought distinctly. We're tearing each other apart piece by piece like jackals at a feast and we can't keep on doing this. But she did not know how to end it.
He walked to the window, leaned his head against the frame and looked out, despite the fact that there was nothing to see. The silence was long and heavy, still hea
ted with the residue of emotion that filled the room. Meg cupped her fist against her lips, trying to quiet her breathing, still her quivering muscles.
At last Red said, without turning around, "We used to be so much better than this."
"Yes." And that one word of quiet agreement seemed to encompass all the sorrow, all the loss, all the bleakness of what was never meant to be. It hurt, deep inside, like a knife twisting into her vital organs. She said softly, without meaning to speak aloud at all, "What happened to us, Red?"
He made a soft, grunting sound, almost like an attempt at a laugh. "Isn't that a million-dollar question? We married in the heat of passion—or maybe just in heat. I couldn't stand your nagging. You couldn't stand... hell, almost everything about me. I was never there for you. You wanted to tie me down. I kept trying to change you, you kept trying to change me... What went wrong? It'd be easier to say what went right."
"I never wanted to change you," she replied, subdued.
He turned on her incredulously. "The hell you didn't! Nothing I ever did was good enough for you. Not that any man would have a better chance than I did, with Daddy as the standard—" At the expression on her face, he interrupted himself, raising his hands in self-defense. "No, I didn't say that. Forget I said that. I'm not going to start it again."
"Damn you, Red, you just can't let up, can you?" She drew in an angry breath, caught herself and pressed her fingers hard against her temples. "You make me crazy." She forced her voice to remain calm, deliberate. "We're getting a divorce. That's supposed to fix everything, but we can't even have a simple conversation about why we're getting a divorce without going for each other's throats again. Damn it, Red, how long are we going to keep doing this to each other? When is this going to be over?"
His expression was sad, and bitter. "It's never going to be over,'' he told her simply. "We're welded together, like—" he smiled a little ruefully "—a bad traffic accident. And if you think a piece of paper is going to fix that, you are crazy.''
Meg closed her eyes briefly, trying to hold back her temper. "It's not all my fault, you know," she said. "I know you like to think it is, but you walked out on me. Remember that."