by Diana Palmer
“I heard every single word, Margie,” Jodie said tightly. “He thinks I’m still crazy about him, and it…disgusts him. He said I’m not in your social set and you should make friends among your own social circle.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “Maybe he’s right, Margie. The two of you took care of me when I had nobody else, but I’ve been taking advantage of it all these years, making believe that you were my family. In a way I’m grateful that Alexander opened my eyes. I’ve been an idiot.”
“Jodie, he didn’t mean it, I know he didn’t! Sometimes he just says things without thinking them through. I know he wouldn’t hurt you deliberately.”
“He didn’t know I could hear him,” she said. “I drank too much and behaved like an idiot. We both know how Alexander feels about women who get drunk. But I’ve come to my senses now. I’m not going to impose on your hospitality…”
“But Alexander wants you to come!” Margie argued. “He said so!”
“No, he doesn’t, Margie,” Jodie said wistfully. “You don’t understand what’s going on, but I’m helping Alexander with a case. He’s using me as a blind while he’s surveilling a suspect, and don’t you dare let on that you know it. It’s not personal between us. It couldn’t be. I’m not his sort of woman and we both know it.”
Margie’s intake of breath was audible. “What am I going to tell him when you don’t show up?”
“You won’t need to tell him anything,” Jodie said easily. “He isn’t expecting me. It was just for show. He’ll tell you all about it one day. Now I have to go, Margie. I’m working in the kitchen, and things are going to burn,” she added, lying through her teeth.
“We could have lunch next week,” the other woman offered.
“No. You need to find friends in your class, Margie. I’m not part of your family, and you don’t owe me anything. Now, goodbye!”
She hung up and unplugged the phone in case Margie tried to call back. She felt sick. But severing ties with Margie was the right thing to do. Once Alexander was through with her, once he’d caught his criminal, he’d leave her strictly alone. She was going to get out of his life, and Margie’s, right now. It was the only sensible way to get over her feelings for Alexander.
The house was full of people when Alexander went inside, carrying his bag on a shoulder strap.
Margie met him at the door. “I’ll bet you’re tired, but at least you got here.” She chuckled, trying not to show her worry. “Leave your bag by the door and come on in. Everybody’s in the dining room with the cake.”
He walked beside her toward the spacious dining room, where about twenty people were waiting near a table set with china and crystal, punch and coffee and cake. He searched the crowd and began to scowl.
“I don’t see Jodie,” he said at once. “Where is she? Didn’t you phone her?”
“Yes,” she groaned, “but she wouldn’t come. Please, Lex, can’t we talk about it later? Look, Kirry’s here!”
“Damn Kirry,” he said through his teeth, glaring down at his sister. “Why didn’t she come?”
She drew in a miserable breath. “Because she heard us talking the last time she was here,” she replied slowly. “She said you were right about her not being in our social class, and that she heard you say that the last thing you wanted was to trip over her at your birthday party.” She winced, because the look on his face was so full of pain.
“She heard me,” he said, almost choking on the words. “Good God, no wonder she looked at me the way she did. No wonder she’s been acting so strangely!”
“She won’t go out to lunch with me, she won’t come here, she doesn’t even want me to call her anymore,” Margie said sadly. “I feel as if I’ve lost my own sister.”
His own loss was much worse. He felt sick to his soul. He’d never meant for Jodie to hear those harsh, terrible words. He’d been reacting to his own helpless loss of control with her, not her hesitant ardor. It was himself he’d been angry at. Now he understood why Jodie was so reluctant to be around him lately. It was ironic that he found himself thinking about her around the clock, and she was as stand-offish as a woman who found him bad company when they were alone. If only he could turn the clock back, make everything right. Jodie, so sweet and tender and loving, Jodie who had loved him once, hearing him tell Margie that Jodie disgusted him…!
“I should be shot,” he ground out. “Shot!”
“Don’t. It’s your birthday,” Margie reminded him. “Please. All these people came just to wish you well.”
He didn’t say another word. He simply walked into the room and let the congratulations flow over him. But he didn’t feel happy. He felt as if his heart had withered and died in his chest.
That night, he slipped into his office while Kirry was talking to Margie, and he phoned Jodie. He’d had two straight malt whiskeys with no water, and he wasn’t quite sober. It had taken that much to dull the sharp edge of pain.
“You didn’t come,” he said when she answered.
She hadn’t expected him to notice. She swallowed, hard. “The invitation was all for show,” she said, her voice husky. “You didn’t expect me.”
There was a pause. “Did you go out with Brody after all?” he drawled sarcastically. “Is that why you didn’t show up?”
“No, I didn’t,” she muttered. “I’m not spending another minute of my life trying to fit into your exalted social class,” she added hotly. “Cheating wives, consciousless husbands, social climbing friends…that’s not my idea of a party!”
He sat back in his chair. “You might not believe it, but it’s not mine, either,” he said flatly. “I’d rather get a fast food hamburger and talk shop with the guys.”
That was surprising. But she didn’t quite trust him. “That isn’t Kirry’s style,” she pointed out.
He laughed coldly. “It would become her style in minutes if she thought it would make me propose. I’m rich. Haven’t you noticed?”
“It’s hard to miss,” she replied.
“Kirry likes life in the fast lane. She wants to be decked out in diamonds and taken to all the most expensive places four nights a week. Five on holidays.”
“I’m sure she wants you, too.”
“Are you?”
“I’m folding clothes, Alexander. Was there anything else?” she added formally, trying to get him to hang up. The conversation was getting painful.
“I never knew that you heard me the night of our last party, Jodie,” he said in a deep, husky, pained sort of voice. “I’m more sorry than I can say. You don’t know what it was like when my mother had parties. She drank like a fish…”
So Margie had told him. It wasn’t really a surprise. “I had some champagne,” she interrupted. “I don’t drink, so it overwhelmed me. I’m very sorry for the way I behaved.”
There was another pause. “I loved it,” he said gruffly.
Now she couldn’t even manage a reply. She just stared at the receiver, waiting for him to say something else.
“Talk to me!” he growled.
“What do you want me to say?” she asked unsteadily. “You were right. I don’t belong in your class. I never will. You said I was a nuisance, and you were ri—”
“Jodie!” Her name sounded as if it were torn from his throat. “Jodie, don’t! I didn’t mean what I said. You’ve never been a nuisance!”
“It’s too late,” she said heavily. “I won’t come back to the ranch again, ever, Alexander, not for you or even for Margie. I’m going to live my own life, make my own way in the world.”
“By pushing us out of it?” he queried.
She sighed. “I suppose so.”
“But not until I solve this case,” he added after a minute. “Right?”
She wanted to argue, but she kept seeing the little boys’ faces in that photograph he’d shown her. “Not until then,” she said.
There was a rough sound, as if he’d been holding his breath and suddenly let it out. “All right.”
“Alexander, where are you?!” That was Kirry’s voice, very loud.
“In a minute, Kirry! I’m on the phone!”
“We’re going to open the presents. Come on!”
Jodie heard the sound Alexander made, and she laughed softly in spite of herself. “I thought it was your birthday?” she mused.
“It started to be, but my best present is back in Houston folding clothes,” he said vehemently.
Her heart jumped. She had to fight not to react. “I’m nobody’s present, Alexander,” she informed him. “And now I really do have to go. Happy birthday.”
“I’m thirty-four,” he said. “Margie is the only family I have. Two of my colleagues just had babies,” he remarked, his voice just slightly slurred. “Their desks are full of photographs of the kids and their wives. Know what I’ve got in a frame on my desk, Jodie? Kirry, in a ball gown.”
“I guess the married guys would switch places with you…”
“That’s not what I mean! I didn’t put it there, she did. Instead of a wife and kids, I’ve got a would-be debutante who wants to own Paris.”
“That was your choice,” she pointed out.
“That’s what you think. She gave me the framed picture.” There was a pause. “Why don’t you give me a photo?”
“Sure. Why not? Who would you like a photo of, and I’ll see if I can find one for you.”
“You, idiot!”
“I don’t have any photos of myself.”
“Why not?”
“Who’d take them?” she asked. “I don’t even own a camera.”
“We’ll have to do something about that,” he murmured. “Do you like parks? We could go jogging early Monday in that one near where you live. The one with the goofy sculpture.”
“It’s modern art. It isn’t goofy.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion. Do you jog?”
“Not really.”
“Do you have sweats and sneakers?”
She sighed irritably. “Well, yes, but…”
“No buts. I’ll see you bright and early Monday.” There was a pause. “I’ll even apologize.”
“That would be a media event.”
“I’m serious,” he added quietly. “I’ve never regretted anything in my life more than knowing you heard what I said to Margie that night.”
For an apology, it was fairly headlong. Alexander never made apologies. It was a red letter event.
‘Okay,” she said after a few seconds.
He sighed, hard. “We can start over,” he said firmly.
“Alexander, are you coming out of there?” came Kirry’s petulant voice in the background.
“Better tell Kirry first,” she chided.
“I’ll tell her…get the hell out of my study!” he raged abruptly, and there was the sound of something heavy hitting the wall. Then there was the sound of a door closing with a quick snap.
“What did you do?” Jodie exclaimed.
“I threw a book in her general direction. Don’t worry. It wasn’t a book I liked. It was something on Colombian politics.”
“You could have hit her!”
“In pistol competition, I hit one hundred targets out of a hundred shots. The book hit ten feet from where she was standing.”
“You shouldn’t throw things at people.”
“But I’m uncivilized,” he reminded her. “I need someone to mellow me out.”
“Kirry’s already there.”
“Not for long, if she opens that damned door again. I’ll see you Monday. Okay?”
There was a long hesitation. But finally she said, “Okay.”
She put down the receiver and stared at it blankly. Her life had just shifted ten degrees and she had no idea why. At least, not right then.
Seven
Jodie had just changed into her sweats and was making breakfast in her sock feet when Alexander knocked on the door.
He was wearing gray sweats, like hers, with gray running shoes. He gave her a long, thorough appraisal. “I don’t like your hair in a bun,” he commented.
“I can’t run with it down,” she told him. “It tangles.”
He sniffed the air. “Breakfast?” he asked hopefully.
“Just bacon and eggs and biscuits.”
“Just! I had a granola bar,” he said with absolute disdain.
She laughed nervously. It was new to have him in her apartment, to have him wanting to be with her. She didn’t understand his change of attitude, and she didn’t really trust it. But she was too enchanted to question it too closely.
“If you’ll feed me,” he began, “I’ll let you keep up with me while we jog.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a bribe,” she teased, moving toward the table. “What would your bosses say?”
“You’re not a client,” he pointed out, seating himself at the table. “Or a perpetrator. So it doesn’t count.”
She poured him a mug of coffee and put it next to his plate, frowning as she noted the lack of matching dishes and even silverware. The table—a prize from a yard sale—had noticeable scratches and she didn’t even have a tablecloth.
“What a comedown this must be,” she muttered to herself as she fetched the blackberry jam and put it on the table, along with another teaspoon that didn’t match the forks.
He gave her an odd look. “I’m not making comparisons, Jodie,” he said softly, and his eyes were as soft as his deep voice. “You live within your means, and you do extremely well at it. You’d be surprised how many people are mortgaged right down to the fillings in their teeth trying to put on a show for their acquaintances. Which is, incidentally, why a lot of them end up in prison, trying to make a quick buck by selling drugs.”
She made a face. “I’d rather starve than live like that.”
“So would I,” he confessed. He bit into a biscuit and moaned softly. “If only Jessie could make these the way you do,” he said.
She smiled, pleased at the compliment, because Jessie was a wonderful cook. “They’re the only thing I do well.”
“No, they aren’t.” He tasted the jam and frowned. “I didn’t know they made blackberry jam,” he noted.
“You can buy it, but I like to make my own and put it up,” she said. “That came from blackberries I picked last summer, on the ranch. They’re actually your own blackberries,” she added sheepishly.
“You can have as many as you like, if you’ll keep me supplied with this jam,” he said, helping himself to more biscuits.
“I’m glad you like it.”
They ate in a companionable silence. When she poured their second cups of strong coffee, there weren’t any biscuits left.
“Now I need to jog,” he teased, “to work off the weight I’ve just put on. Coffee’s good, too, Jodie. Everything was good.”
“You were just hungry.”
He sat back holding his coffee and stared at her. “You’ve never learned how to take a compliment,” he said gently. “You do a lot of things better than other people, but you’re modest to the point of self-abasement.”
She moved a shoulder. “I like cooking.”
He sipped coffee, still watching her. She was pretty early in the morning, he mused, with her face blooming like a rose, her skin clean and free of makeup. Her lips had a natural blush, and they had a shape that was arousing. He remembered how it felt to kiss her, and he ached to do it again. But this was new territory for her. He had to take his time. If he rushed her, he was going to lose her. That thought, once indifferent, took on supreme importance now. He was only beginning to see how much a part of him Jodie already was. He could have kicked himself for what he’d said to her at the ill-fated party.
“The party was a bust,” he said abruptly.
Her eyes widened. “Pardon?”
“Kirry opened the presents and commented on their value and usefulness until the guests turned to strong drink,” he said with a twinkle in his green eyes. “Then she took offense when a former friend of hers turned
up with her ex-boyfriend and made a scene. She left in a trail of flames by cab before we even got to the live band.”
She was trying not to smile. It was hard not to be amused at Kirry’s situation. The woman was trying, even to people like Margie, who wanted to be friends with her.
“I guess there went Margie’s shot at fashion fame,” she said sadly.
“Kirry would never have helped her,” he said carelessly, and finished his coffee. “She never had any intention of risking her job on a new designer’s reputation. She was stringing Margie along so that she could hang out with us. She was wearing thin even before Saturday night.”
“Sorry,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
“We weren’t lovers,” he offered blatantly.
She blushed and then caught her breath. “Alexander…!”
“I wanted you to know that, in case anything is ever said about my relationship with her,” he added, very seriously. “It was never more than a surface attraction. I can’t abide a woman who wears makeup to bed.”
She wouldn’t ask, she wouldn’t ask, she wouldn’t…! “How do you know she does?” she blurted out.
He grinned at her. “Margie told me. She asked Kirry why, and Kirry said you never knew when a gentleman might knock on your door after midnight.” He leaned forward. “I never did.”
“I wasn’t going to ask!”
“Sure you were.” His eyes slid over her pretty breasts, nicely but not blatantly outlined under the gray jersey top she was wearing. “You’re possessive about me. You don’t want to be, but you are.”
She was losing ground. She got to her feet and made a big thing of checking to see that her shoelaces were tied. “Shouldn’t we go?”
He got up, stretched lazily, and started to clear the table. She was shocked to watch him.
“You’ve never done that,” she remarked.
He glanced at her. “If I get married, and I might, I think marriage should be a fifty-fifty proposition. There’s nothing romantic about a man lying around the apartment in a dirty T-shirt watching football while his wife slaves in the kitchen.” He frowned thoughtfully. “Come to think of it, I don’t like football.”