He climbed the stairs slowly, his unease growing even though he gripped the rail and found it solid.
Jamila had installed a rail. If he went to her kitchen cupboard, would he find the poisonous cleansers gone? If so, it didn't make Sara safe. The danger Jamila represented was more insidious. The motherless girl would be drawn to the warmth of her fire, the brightness of her hair, and the softness of her laugh. Sara would feel safe, but there would be no safety, no vigilance. Jamila was encouraging Sara for her own purposes, following her impulse without regard to the child's needs.
Sara would come to depend on her. Then, one day, Jamila would be gone, moving on to the next passion, leaving Sara more alone than ever.
She opened the door seconds after he knocked.
Tonight's black stretch leotard covered her from neck to ankle.
"You're not painting."
"Just finished." With her hair pulled back from her face, she looked uncharacteristically sober. "Do you want to see it?"
Better not, he thought as she led him along that corridor, in case her painting tightened the web around him. But he followed her, forcing himself to study the clasp at the back of her head, the riot of red curls tangled around it—forcing his eyes away from the graceful sway of her hips as she walked away from him.
When he stopped at the entrance to her studio, she caught his hand and led him to the easel. Then she released him, stepping back, leaving his world empty except for the painting.
Ocean, he thought, but he knew it wasn't ocean. Waves... blue... something heart-stopping in the way colors battled shape. He saw—thought he saw a face in the storm, a woman... gone... a hand reaching, but there was no hand. Then there was, two hands clasped together with desperate tension in the moment of fulfillment.
He blinked and the lovers' hands disappeared, leaving waves, an ocean of storms that wasn't an ocean, and his own heart thudding in dull ragged beats.
"What do you call it?" He told himself to look away, but his eyes clung to the sweep of a blue wave that wasn't a wave.
"I'm not sure. I'll name it tomorrow."
Only a painting, he told himself. Oils on canvas—he could smell the oil paint thick in the air. "This is what you paint? Abstracts?"
"Usually I do people, and the world they live in."
He didn't look at her, but knew her head would be tilted as she studied the canvas, her lips pulled together in a frown of concentration.
"This is different," she said.
He jerked his gaze away from the painting—a mistake, because she stood only a hand's reach away.
"I'm hungry," she said. "I haven't eaten since—I'm not sure when."
When she bent her head and reached up into her hair, he fought not to touch the graceful curve of her torso. She pulled a clasp away and the mass of her glorious hair came tumbling down. She dropped the clasp on the small table beside her easel.
"What about you?" she asked, absently finger-combing her hair.
He didn't know what she'd painted, but when he looked at it he saw only need, and beyond all reason he needed this woman in his bed.
Her bed would be better, then he'd have some chance of walking away afterward.
He jerked away from the easel, prowling to the middle of the room.
"You pack a wallop, Jamila."
"I do?"
"Your painting, I don't know what it is, but it's powerful." He didn't know why it bothered him so much to discover that she was a hell of a good artist, but it did.
"Thank you. Are you hungry? Have you eaten?"
Hunger, he thought. "No, I haven't eaten."
In an instant she shifted from repose to energy as she spun toward the kitchen. "I'll make us something."
He followed. One step, two, grasped her arm.
He wasn't ready when she turned, not ready for the closeness, the scent of soap and oil paints, the knowledge that he had only to tighten his grip, pull her closer to feel her curves hard against him.
"Not here," he growled.
Her eyes were wide, alarmed... no, not alarm. Something else. He remembered the feel of her fist clenched in his shirt, her breath against his mouth.
"Where?" she asked, her pulse beating rapidly under his fingers.
She'd painted it, a tangle of blue and black, desire warring against sanity. He didn't want her to feel this pounding unease, didn't want it to be real.
"Somewhere else," he said thickly. "A restaurant." If he didn't get out of here soon, he'd yank her into his arms to taste the pale flush of her lips, to drink her kiss, to dive in and take what he'd learned so abruptly to need...
He released her wrist. "Put something on. I'll take you to dinner."
He'd take her to Eduardo's, where the quiet, classy atmosphere would make it impossible to imagine dragging her to the floor with his mouth locked on hers, to fantasize tearing that stretchy black fabric from her, freeing the warm silk of her skin so that he could drown, placing her hands on his naked chest as he loved her.
Stop it! Now!
At Eduardo's, she'd be out of her element, but he'd be on home ground. Familiar territory. He'd be in control of himself and the situation.
Chapter 6
Something feminine, Jamie decided, surveying the clothes in her closet. After all, it was their first date, unless you counted prowling through the rain looking for Squiggles.
She wondered if he had come to give her the third-degree about Sara, or because he couldn't forget that kiss any more than she could. Wondered if seeing the new rail on her porch had irritated him, or pleased him.
Dinner would be leisurely, whether he intended it to be or not. She'd ask questions, absorbing Alexander Kent with as much thoroughness as she could. She would savor every minute, every molecule of building tension.
If the tension built much more, she'd be a wreck! Only moments ago when he'd grasped her wrist and pulled her back, she'd felt herself sliding into his arms, felt the shock when she stopped short of him. His eyes, telling her he wanted to touch her everywhere.
Not tonight Of course it wouldn't be tonight, but even though it hadn't happened yet, she would dress for her lover. Luckily, she'd showered just before he came. Now she shed her leotard quickly and rummaged through her drawer until she found a lacy black camisole. She pulled on sheer pantyhose, then the thin green silk dress with the swirling skirt that felt so sensuous as she walked. She left two buttons open at the top, enough for the camisole to peek out, providing a nice color contrast.
Strappy high-heeled sandals, black belt to match camisole and shoes. Earrings... the jade studs would pick up the deepest tones from the dress.
She stepped back, examining herself in the mirror. The colors worked, but her hair was a mess. She grabbed a pick and combed through it, leaving it loose on her shoulders. Lipstick. A touch of mascara. Her hands were trembling. How did sexual attraction for a man turn muscles so spastic she couldn't apply her mascara? Was the force that caused her to tremble the same energy that turned him irritable?
She laughed at herself and decided her lashes would have to do without mascara. She let herself out of the bedroom, wondering if Alexander had taken the opportunity to prowl through her kitchen cupboards again. If he had, he wouldn't find any deadly cleaning products under her sink. She'd cleared everything out and put it in the high cupboards over the stove, where she was pretty sure a six-year-old girl couldn't reach even with the help of a kitchen chair.
She found him in the studio, standing in front of Man in the Rain, which she'd propped up against the fireplace she never used. He turned as she stepped into the room and she wondered if he knew she'd painted him.
Of course not. How could he know? A man, hunched down, hurrying through the rain to his lover. His name was Alexander, but the man in her house wouldn't know that until she chose to tell him.
When they became lovers, she would tell him.
"Ready?" he asked, his eyes moving swiftly over her. She tried to read something there, to know if h
e liked the green dress, the jade earrings.
"Will I do?"
He didn't answer, but slid one hand into his pocket and brought out his keys.
She went out before him, a smile on her face because she was almost certain he liked the dress. She picked up her purse at the door.
"Give me your keys," he said when they'd stepped outside.
She handed them to him, watched him lock her door in a way that reminded her of her father, the way he so often reached to open a door for her, to check she'd locked her doors and windows.
In Alex's car, Jamie's lips parted on a comment about the weather. Nervous, she realized, and opted for silence rather than chatter. He pushed a button on the dash and music filled the cabin of the car, something soft and moody.
"That's nice," she said, deciding that she liked his hands. Strong, long-fingered, nails clipped short. When he'd grasped her wrist, she'd felt strength, had wondered what he did that made his palm and fingers lightly callused.
She leaned her head back against the leather headrest, closed her eyes, and let her mind drift with the music. Soon he would speak, and she'd answer. By the time the evening ended, the energies between them would have shifted. She wondered if the tension would intensify or weaken.
He drove to Eduardo's where the maitre d' greeted him by name and smiled at Jamie. "Miss Ferguson, good to see you again."
"Thank you, Max."
"You've been here before?" Alexander asked as they followed the maitre d' to a table overlooking the baby grand piano.
"My father and I have dinner here sometimes, though not often this time of year."
Max pulled out a chair for her.
As Alexander sat across from her, she smiled her pleasure. The lighting was low enough for mood, yet would allow her to see his expression, to watch his eyes.
When he ordered champagne, she thought of the champagne that had flowed the night her show opened, the way she'd walked and talked with her fingers clenched around a glass, trying to believe it was true, that she was a real artist whose paintings were shown in Liz's exclusive gallery.
Tonight, she would drink the champagne, just enough to feel the light bubbly effect, not enough to dull her senses. She didn't know how long she and Alexander would have, but she wanted every minute clear and filled with color.
"Why doesn't your father take you to dinner this time of year?" he asked when they were alone.
Down at the piano, a man dressed in a tuxedo slipped onto the bench and placed his hands on the keys. The music was light, water bubbling over stones in a creek.
"Taxes," said Jamie. "He's a CPA. By February his social life freezes to nothing. It's March now, so we meet for quick lunches in a restaurant on the ground floor of the Bettner building until tax season is over."
"Your father's a CPA?"
"Is that so astounding?" She leaned forward and saw his eyes dip to the lace of her camisole. Maybe tonight wouldn't be too soon for them to become lovers after all. With anticipation pulsing in her veins already, what would she be waiting for? What would they be waiting for? "What did you imagine my father would be?"
"An aging hippie," he said, and when she laughed aloud, his smile echoed hers. "The daughter of a CPA should know enough to use an umbrella in the rain."
"And have a rail around her stairs?"
"Yes," he agreed, and she saw the antagonism flash. "The Bettner building, you said? Ferguson and Company—that's your father?"
"That's right."
"He used to do my taxes."
"Don't worry, Alexander, I'm not about to pry your confidential information from my father's files."
His frown deepened and she wondered what he would say if she told him she'd once worked for her father, that she'd quit two months after passing her CPA exams.
From behind her, a man said, "Alex, we were just talking about you."
Jamie turned her head and saw an elderly man carrying a cane, his hand outstretched to shake Alexander's. Alex stood and shook hands with formal briskness. Business thing, Jamie decided. They weren't buddies.
"I'd like you to meet Jamila Ferguson," said Alex in a voice Jamie couldn't interpret. "Jamila, this is Cyril Thurston."
She smiled and held out her hand, found his slightly clammy. She pulled a memory from of those years working in Dad's office. Cyril Thurston, the chairman of the board for the Thurston Foundation, a large private charity.
"I hope you enjoy your dinner," she said.
"Obviously, you're enjoying yours," said Thurston.
Alexander said, "We were discussing a patient."
"You're a doctor?" Thurston asked Jamie.
"An artist." Her words seemed to echo into a hole in the background noise.
"Ms. Ferguson is looking after one of my patients," said Alexander. "A child."
He looked guilty, Jamie realized as she watched him exchange courtesies with Mr. Thurston. Married, she thought with a sick lurch.
How could she have been so stupid? Any fool should know that a good-looking doctor in his late thirties would be married.
She hadn't even considered the possibility of a wife.
When she clutched his shirt in her corridor the other night, she'd felt his heart beat with the same breathless awareness as hers. When she'd touched his lips, he'd kissed her as if the hunger boiled in his veins, and when he looked at her painting tonight—
He didn't wear a wedding ring. Was he one of those men who chose not to wear a ring because it would interfere with his affairs? He didn't feel like a deceptive man. He felt like a good man, and she'd assumed he was just that—a doctor who wanted to help children, a man who felt the same chemistry she felt, but fought it because of a cautious nature.
"I'll be sending those papers over in a couple of days," he said to Mr. Turnston.
"I'll look for them. Say hello to Diana."
He was married; her name was Diana.
Jamie watched the maitre d' escort Cyril Thurston to a table near the far wall. She wasn't ready to look at Alexander yet—Alex, she corrected herself. People who knew him called him Alex, and he hadn't wanted that particular acquaintance to see him with Jamie. That had been obvious in the way he'd said they were "discussing a patient."
You're married. She wanted to shout the accusation, at the very least to ask if it was true, but she wasn't certain she could form the words without his realizing how much it mattered.
He'd taken her to dinner. Perhaps he meant to talk about Sara. Maybe he'd told himself that, or maybe the kiss they shared had meant nothing to him, and the tension she'd read in him was only—
Don't be a fool, she told herself. If she'd read tension, it would be only his own tension in knowing this dinner was a prelude to seduction, to an affair with a married man.
She'd told Liz that she wanted an affair—free, hot, and intimate. She'd intended to mean everything to Alex, until it ended.
"Are you ready to order?" asked the waiter. She nodded and Alex must have made some motion of assent too, because the waiter bowed attentively and turned to Jamie.
"Seafood fettuccini," she said, letting habit take the place of a considered choice.
"New York steak," said Alex. "Rare."
A few moments ago, she would have smiled at the contrast of foods. Rare steak seemed so much a man's meal, direct and clear in contrast to the subtlety of Italian pasta.
When the waiter left after consulting on salad dressings and soup, Jamie was ready to meet her dinner companion's eyes with a question.
"Why did you bring me here? To discuss Sara? Do you still think I'm not a suitable companion for a child?" She realized there could be another, more devious reason for his attitude about Sara. He didn't want her to see Sara because if they had an affair—after it was over, she might—
"How did you get your porch rail put on so quickly?"
"The Yellow Pages." The waiter delivered dinner rolls in a wicker basket, wrapped in a thick linen napkin. "I looked under construction—residentia
l, then phoned around until I found someone who could do it right away. You've gone to a lot of effort to monitor my relationship with Sara. Are you this protective of all your patients?"
She liked the cool irritation she heard in her own voice, because she believed it could be relied upon to hold her true reaction to him at bay until he was gone.
An hour, she thought, perhaps an hour and a half, then he'd drive away from her house in his car. Would he kiss her again, or had she mistaken his intention entirely? Would he tell her about his wife Diana and the man who had stopped at their table? Would he explain this dinner to his wife later? What would he tell his wife about Jamie?
This irritating woman I met in the emergency room...
This crazy woman I bumped into while searching for a cat. She couldn't even carry an umbrella to protect herself from the rain...
Perhaps Jamie would paint both men tonight, Alexander and Mr. Thurston, talking without saying much, a dream woman named Diana in the background.
"How did you become an artist?"
Her hand jerked and she tamed it, brushed aside the cloth covering the bread and grasped one of the warm buns. It was whole wheat and uncomfortably warm.
"By painting," she said tonelessly, deliberately rubbing her thumb over the rough texture of the dinner roll. "Are you Alex, or Alexander?"
"Usually Alex." His brows drew together, making the brown even more intense. "When did you decide to become a painter? It's not a very practical choice."
She tore the roll into two pieces and reached for her butter knife. She felt him watching as she spread the butter. The recklessness still pounded in her veins, even though she knew he was married. She wouldn't see him again, but she decided that she would enjoy this meal, and that she would know more about this man before he left her life.
"Do you think practicality should be the primary reason for a career choice, Alex?"
He took one of the rolls and divided it with surgical precision. "Many people choose art as a hobby, but it has distinct disadvantages as a career choice. Of course, if your father's willing to subsidize—"
The Colors of Love Page 7