CHAPTER THREE
It was almost one o'clock when she woke, and by the time she showered, dressed, and cleaned the apartment, it was close to three before she could sit down and relax with a cup of coffee and put that call into Dean. She got his voicemail. He must be fishing, the lucky guy.
She began to look over the mountain of papers she had to have corrected for Monday's classes. She was halfway through the history quiz she had given on Friday when the knock sounded on her door. She tensed, knowing Hunt would have tapped out his special little clichéd rhythm. She smoothed suddenly damp palms down the side of her denim pants, tugged her T-shirt down over her hips, and went to the door.
"Howdy." It was Deke she-couldn't-remember-his-last name, and in his jeans and denim jacket he looked ten feet tall, holding her little ice bag by its plastic neck. "Just stopped by to return this."
"Uh, thank you, Mister…”
"Just Deke is okay." His eyes skittered past her shoulder. "Actually, I had an ulterior motive."
"Oh?" She took the ice bag from him, her face carefully expressionless.
"I was hoping I might get invited in for a cup of coffee." A grin split his wide mouth. "Figured the air might be a little better up here than it is down there." He nodded toward the stairway.
She gave him a slight smile and couldn't stop herself from asking, "What's the matter with the air down there?"
"It's a mite blue, mostly." He shook his head, a mischievous light in his eyes. "Us gentlemanly cowboys have tender ears. We aren't used to such talk."
"I'm sure you aren't," she said dryly, knowing she was being charmed, but liking his way of doing it. "Won't you come in, Deke?"
"Why, thank you kindly, ma'am, don't mind if I do."
She went into the kitchenette to stow away the ice bag and fill the coffee maker. "Oh, and Deke?" She turned.
He lifted an eyebrow. "Ma'am?"
"Now that you're inside my apartment, you can drop the phony cowboy act."
He grimaced. "Was it that bad?" His tone was normal, his accent middle western, she guessed.
"I've heard worse."
"How did I give myself away?"
"I heard you talk yesterday, remember?"
"Oh, yeah." He shot her an admiring, amused smile. "That was stupid of me."
"We all make mistakes. Milk or sugar?"
"Just black."
She poured out the coffee, and he took up his cup.
"Careful, it's hot," she warned him.
"Just the way I like it." He sipped it, closed his eyes appreciatively, and put the cup down.
She tasted her own and then said in what she hoped was a casual tone, "What seems to be the trouble down there?"
"We both overslept, and the one mechanic in town doesn't work on Saturday afternoon. Looks like we're stuck here for the weekend."
"Looks like," she said noncommittally.
"I don't think Ty slept very well last night, either."
"Perhaps the beds weren't right for you," she said coolly.
"We've slept in worse," Deke drawled.
"I'll bet you have," she murmured.
"Hey." Deke held his hands up, palms out. "Hold your fire." His smile was way too appealing. "I surrender."
"Sorry. I guess I didn't sleep very well last night, either." Restlessly, she got up from the table and went to the sink to pour her coffee out. It had turned bitter.
Deke's eyes flickered over the papers scattered at the other end of the table. "You really teach?"
She turned and leaned against the counter. "Well, if I'm pretending, the kids haven't noticed."
"That isn't what I meant.”
"Skip it. What do you do for a living, Deke? Do you work for Mr. Rundell?"
"I suppose you could say that. Mostly I just stick around to help him keep his feet on the ground."
"Do they have a tendency to fly off?"
Deke squinted at her, lifted a light brown eyebrow. "Yeah, once in a while he goes into orbit." He drained his coffee cup, set it back on the table. "We started out as stunt men together. He'd done some race car driving, so he did cars, and I did horses."
"Doesn't he ride? He told me he was raised on a ranch."
"He rides but only when he has to." Deke's eyes narrowed. "When did he tell you that? He doesn't usually tell anybody about being raised on a ranch." Deke ducked his head, took another sip of coffee. "He make a pass at you?"
She looked at him steadily and said in a dry tone, "What do you want, a blow-by-blow, or are you watching out for him?”
“I was just curious about when this happened.”
Caught, she admitted the truth. "Last night. Neither one of us could sleep. We went for a walk. More coffee?"
"I won't turn it down." He held out his cup, his brown eyes watching her. She turned her back to him to replace the coffee server, and he said carefully, "Must have been a nice night for a walk."
She faced him, leaning against the cupboard. "It-was. Do you feel you have to watch out for Ty?"
A smile lifted his mouth, crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Ty can watch out for himself. I just wanted to know if I'm stepping on any toes, that's all. We have a rule. No poaching on the other's territory."
The thought of being just another conquest in the long line of women snared by Ty Rundell made her say icily, "I'm not a territory."
Deke raised a lazy eyebrow. "That fellow you were with yesterday seemed to be staking his claim.”
The temptation to hide behind Hunt was strong, but her innate honesty won out. "No. He’s just a friend. I don’t have a that kind of relationship with him or any other man."
"Good. Then you shouldn't have any objection if I volunteer to cook a pizza for your supper tonight."
She hadn't fallen into such a skillfully constructed trap since Paul. "You ought to wear a sign. Posted. Dangerous."
"Now what fun would that be?" He hitched his pants up at the knee, and swung one leg over the other. "You can always refuse,” he grinned at her, a disarming, little boy grin, "but you'll be sorry if you do. I make a mean pizza."
"There aren't any utensils in that apartment downstairs. What are you going to bake it in?"
Deke raised his eyebrows and said, "Now don't that beat all? I bought all the ingredients and forgot I didn't have anything to work with."
His boyish air of innocence made her want to laugh. "You're a fraud, Deke."
His grin widened. "But you're gonna let me use your pizza pans anyway, aren't you?"
"Tell me something."
With an extravagant wave of his hand he said, "For you, honey, anything."
"What do you do for Ty Rundell, really, besides soften up the people he's decided he needs to see?"
Deke narrowed his eyes and stared at her from under light brown lashes. "You call me dangerous? Honey, you're lethal. I never had a teacher as sharp as you."
"Probably because none of them had their early training in Hollywood," she said, her voice dry. "I used to watch a producer slap an actor on the back at a party one night and fire him the next morning."
Deke's face changed, became thoughtful. She could almost see him mulling her words over in his mind and searching for a response.
"Whatever you're going to say, make it the truth," she warned.
His face changed, seemed older, more right for him, somehow. "All right. Cards on the table." She tensed. He was watching her closely to gauge her reaction. "Ty didn't order me to come up here. We don't have any grand plan. We mostly play it by ear. I know Ty wants to talk to you. He evidently didn't make much headway last night because if he had, he'd be writing this afternoon instead of swearing at everything and everybody in sight. I took it upon myself to see if I could get you to spend the evening with us.”
She shook her head, and he held up his hand. "Now, wait a minute. This isn't an 'either, or' situation. I personally want your company this evening. Whether you want to talk to Ty or not, well, that's your business. If you don't want to talk, fin
e. We'll eat, instead. But don't say no to me because you aren't going to talk to Ty. We ain’t joined at the hip, ma’am."
She had to smile at that. "You are a very persuasive and dangerous man, Deke." But he was interesting, too, and he made her realize how narrow her life had become since she'd come to Springwater. She hadn't talked with anyone like him in ages, and it was stimulating to match wits with an adept adversary. Deke reminded her of her stepfather, although she was sure Deke was far more worldly aware than Dean. Dean was intelligent and wise and thought everyone else was, too. Deke knew better. Knowledge of the world gleamed from his eyes.
She leaned back against the counter. "You don’t make one of those pizzas with ham and pineapple and heaven knows what else on it, do you? I’m a cheese and pepperoni woman myself.”
Deke grinned. "I can guarantee you one cheese and pepperoni pizza, pineapple free.” Pressing his advantage, he said, "Eight o'clock?"
"Come around seven thirty, and put it together here."
"You got yourself a date." Deke eased his lanky frame out of the chair.
When he was gone, Leigh cleared the cups away from the table and ran the hot water into the sink. Was she completely insane, inviting two men into her life who could destroy the peace of mind that she had worked so hard to achieve during the last seven years? She hadn't fenced verbally with an intelligent man since the last time she was in Hollywood.
The last time. She thrust her hands into the hot water
as if to cleanse away the thoughts. They ran on inside her head, unhindered by her attempt at control.
She was twenty when her mother called her at Dean's cabin that summer. "I've always taken such good care of myself, but now it seems I have this tumor, darling. It's the damnedest thing." A hesitation, a slight laugh. Claire Foster, at her Academy Award best. "They say there's nothing that can be done, the fools." Another long pause while Leigh caught her breath. "I need you, darling. Will you come?”
Reluctant, guilty and ashamed of her reluctance, Leigh agreed. That summer, between her sophomore and junior year in college, she climbed on the plane to Los Angeles. On the way she read the magazines she had brought with her, magazines about teaching and creativity and exciting new ways to present classroom material. She had a talent for working with children, she discovered, and she enjoyed her college work. She had read those instead of the glossy magazine the flight attendant handed her with a picture of her mother on the cover. That had been a mistake. For if she had read that magazine, she would have known about Paul.
She sloshed the cups vigorously into the water and turned the faucet on full force to rinse them. Her legs trembled; her hands shook. Her cell phone rang. She dropped the cup, watching it bounce between the rubberized prongs. The phone went again. Like someone in a dream, she walked to the counter where her phone lay. "Hello?"
"Leigh? You sound strange. Is anything wrong?"
"No, nothing's wrong. How are you?" Sharp, perceptive Eve with her wasp tongue and her tall, agile body was a woman in her forties who had never found a man able or willing, to match wits with her.
"I'm looking for company, that's how I am," she said bluntly. "These math tests are driving me bananas. I've got to get out of this house or I'll lose what little sanity I have. Are you busy tonight?"
"I…” She started to explain about Deke and the pizza, and a sixth sense made her stop. Suppose she tossed some of Deke's maneuvering back in his lap? She didn't want to face Ty and Deke alone, and Eve's presence would make the numbers come out right. "No, I'm not doing anything. Why don't you drop over about eight? I'm tied up till then.” She wasn't one to indulge in subterfuge, but she knew if she told Eve the truth, Eve would run a mile. Eve, like Leigh, carried battle scars.
"Oh," Leigh said, "don't eat supper. We'll have something here."
"You're on," Eve answered with evident enjoyment.
When she hung up the phone, she knew she’d been slightly underhanded. But Deke seemed like a good match for her friend. Eve was stunningly attractive...and tall enough to match Deke’s sky-high height.
Promptly at seven thirty, Deke appeared at her door.
He was smiling, and he was alone. "Ty refused to come," he told her cheerily, a big brown paper bag in his arms.
She felt a brief flash of irritation. For two hours she had braced herself for this encounter, and he hadn't even bothered to show up. Their walk in the darkness and that kiss had meant nothing to him. But even though she told herself that she was glad she wouldn't be seeing him again, she couldn't prevent herself from asking, "Where is he?"
"Working on the car. We pushed it down to the station, and he's down there now, lying on his back, looking under the damn thing." Deke shook his head. "I told him to forget it." He smiled. "He doesn't listen to me much."
"No," she murmured, "I don't suppose he does."
She had laid everything out on the table Deke would need, a round pan, a bowl, spoons, measuring cups, a pizza cutter. He went to work at once, deftly measuring the ingredients for the crust into the bowl and dousing the flour and yeast with the warm water. He kept up a running commentary all the while, telling her about his work in the studio. He told a story well, but she listened with only half her attention, her eyes trained on the clock above the stove. Ty's absence knocked everything off center. Without him, the whole thing would look like a setup to Eve. She would take one look and run. Nothing Leigh might say would convince her to stay, unless she could think of something.
The pizza was in the oven when the knock on her door finally came. Nervously, Leigh leaped out of the chair, aware of Deke's lazy gaze on her as she walked to the door, smoothing her hand down her denim skirt.
Eve blew in like a winter storm, breathless. "I didn't know what you were having to eat, so I brought some red wine. I hope that's okay." Eve thrust the brown-wrapped bottle at her and moved to take off her khaki rain jacket, when she saw Deke. Her green eyes flew back to Leigh's, and they glistened with anger. "I thought you weren't busy," she muttered in an undertone to Leigh. "I could kill you for this." Her arm went back into her jacket, and she looked over Leigh's shoulder and spoke to Deke the way she might have if he had been a stranger she had jostled in a public place. ''I'm sorry. Leigh didn't tell me she had company. I'm obviously crashing the party." Eve turned to make her escape.
Desperately, Leigh tried to think of a way to stop her…and got sudden, unexpected help. "Don't go," Deke drawled, moving away from the stove, taking a step toward them. "This isn't a private party. Ty was supposed to make the fourth but he was a no show…and I did forget the wine."
"I really don't think I can stay," Eve said bluntly, but she wasn't walking out the door. Leigh watched with interest as the color climbed in her friend's cheeks.
"Don't let me chase you away. I don't bite," his hands came out, palms up, unguarded, and the grin widened, "at least not on the first meeting."
Inwardly, Leigh groaned. That touch of sexual teasing would be just enough to send Eve flying out the door. But Eve wasn't moving. She impaled Leigh with those green eyes and hissed at her under her breath, "You set me up for this."
Recovering, Leigh said, "You heard him. I thought I was going to have to entertain the two of them. Please stay." She played her trump card, the one she should have played at the very beginning. "I need backup."
Eve shot her a look that stung. Leigh fended off the sharp arrows in those flashing green eyes, shifted the bottle in the crook of her arm and stared back at her, her own gray eyes pleading. While they waged silent combat, Deke walked closer, introduced himself, and reached for Eve's coat. She handed it to him and in response to his introduction, explained she and Leigh were coworkers.
His hands rested briefly on her shoulders, ostensibly to help her with her jacket. Eve's cheeks brightened more than ever. Her movements were always quick and graceful, but she was even quicker getting out of her jacket. She shrugged it off in two seconds flat.
Deke hung Eve’s jacket in the closet
near the door. Leigh turned away, opened the wine, went to the cabinet and got out the glasses, leaving Eve and Deke to stand on the other side the room, gazing at each other, Deke with interest, Eve with barely contained anger. Leigh poured out the dark, glossy liquid and crossed the room to hand a glass to Eve. “Sit down,” she said, indicating the sofa. Eve went to one corner and sank down into the cushions nervously.
"Deke was a stunt man in Hollywood."
Eve tried not to be impressed. "Sounds dangerous." She sipped her wine carefully.
Deke lowered himself into the sofa on the opposite end, a comfortable distance away from Eve. Leigh sank into a chair across from him, congratulating herself. Eve wasn't happy, but she was here.
He said, “It’s probably not any more dangerous than what you do…facing an unruly mob of kids.”
Eve’s eyes flickered under black lashes. “There are some days when I’d agree with you one hundred percent. What kind of stunts do you do, Mr. Slayton?”
“Deke, ma’am,” he corrected her gently. “I’m out of the business now, but when I was in it, I did the horse stunts mostly. I grew up on the rodeo circuit. My father and brothers were all riders.”
“Are they in Hollywood, too?”
Deke sipped his wine and closed his eyes in appreciation of its taste. ”No. They had more sense. I ended up in Glitter Town because of my wife.”
Eve stiffened and then relaxed. “You’re married.”
“Was. She was killed three years ago in an accident on the freeway.” He looked down, as if studying his wine, his face dark. “She always worried about me getting killed at work.” He raised his head and looked straight at Eve. “Funny how things turn out sometimes.”
“Yes, it is,” Eve agreed, her voice soft. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Yeah, I am, too. I’ve never stopped being sorry.” Deke lifted his wineglass to his lips. “We were going to start a family the next year. Now I wish we hadn’t waited.”
Then Leigh lifted her glass, too, and sipped. Only someone with the hide of an elephant would remain unaffected by the bitter regret in Deke’s voice and Eve did not have the hide of an elephant. Leigh saw Eve’s mouth soften and her eyes lose their angry, defensive look.
One Magic Night Page 4