“Maybe no one really loves that intensely,” she murmured aloud. But instinctively she knew that they did. Very special people were surely privileged to love like that.
The phone rang. Before Gayle picked up the receiver she reminded herself to write back to Sally.
“Gayle! Good—you're home.” It was Tina.
“Happy birthday, kid.”
“Thanks. Are you ready?”
“Ready? I just got in. I thought we weren't going out until eight.”
“No! We got reservations for dinner at the pew club down by the Sheraton. Didn't Liz call you?”
“No, Liz didn't call me.”
“Well, get dressed! Hurry! She's picking me up in twenty minutes. We'll be at your place in half an hour. And, oh, make it dressy, huh? It's coats and ties only for men, so we may as well use the opportunity, okay?”
“I haven't got anything—”
“You've more clothes than Macy's. It's my birthday! Find something!”
Gayle was about to say that she couldn't possibly be ready in thirty minutes, but a dull buzz assured her that Tina had already hung up. Muttering, she hurried to her bedroom and walked quickly over to her closet and began to flip through the hangers. She found a backless black silk, pushed past it, came back to it. She could swish her hair to the side with a barrette, wear the gold choker and her new black heels and be all set.
She should have hopped into the shower but decided that it had been a long day at the gallery and she deserved a decent bath. She filled the tub with bubbles, poured herself a glass of wine, and stepped in. The water was good and warm, the scent of the bubbles delicious. She closed her eyes and leaned back, then opened her eyes again and decided she even liked her bathroom. She'd decorated it in different shades of mauve. Her towels were monogrammed and her curtains were the sheerest gauze over a darker velvet. Tina once said that Gayle's bathroom reminded her of a powder room in a classy whorehouse. Gayle wasn't sure she liked the description, but her bathroom was nice and luxurious. Little Hummel figurines sat on the marble commode, a Lladro angel stood high above the brass towel rings. Gayle shrugged. She couldn't draw or paint, but the artist inside of her appreciated beautiful things. Not that she had to have them. When she and Thane had first met, they'd slept on comforters on the floor. They'd eaten bread and cheese and laughed over cheap wine.
She stood, ignoring the bubbles that clung to her. She hadn't thought about Thane in a long time, but today Geoffrey had mentioned his name and then she'd received the letter from Sally. It was probably natural that she was thinking about him. But it wasn't natural to be feeling quite so...disturbed.
She sipped her wine. It was the paintings, she thought. She couldn't get the image of those lovers out of her mind, and they were making her acutely unhappy with a life that had pleased her very well. No. She shook her head and swallowed down the rest of her wine, wincing as she did it too quickly. Everyone was unhappy once in a while, right? Married people wanted to be single; singles wanted to be married. Tall people wanted to be short. It was human nature.
Gayle wrapped a huge towel around herself and hurried back to her bedroom to dress; more time had gone by than she had planned. She dug quickly into her small nightstand for underwear and stockings, smiling ruefully at her weakness for pretty lingerie. The drawer was filled with soft, silky teddies and string-line panties in satin and lace.
Her doorbell rang just as she was fixing her long blond hair to one side. She yelled that she would be right down, hurriedly slipped into her heels, grabbed her coat, her purse, and the elegant negligee she had bought for Tina, and rushed out.
Out on the street, the night had become even more beautiful. The snow was silver beneath the moon. There seemed to be an air of expectation about it, something in the freshness that swirled around her. She gave herself a little shake. If she weren't careful, she'd start believing in destiny. But, damn, it had been a strange day! Not so much because of things that had happened but because of the way she had been feeling.
“Hey! Get in! It's a cold night, if you haven't noticed!”
Tina was the one speaking. The back door of Liz's little Volvo swung open and Gayle stepped in and slammed the door. Liz told her Hi through the rearview mirror, and Tina turned around to survey her in the shadows and glares of the streetlights.
“Happy birthday, kid,” Gayle told her.
Tina grimaced. “Thirty-five. I'm almost middle-aged.”
“You are middle-aged,” Liz told her cheerfully.
“That's okay,” Gayle assured her. “You're aging better than Joan Collins.”
“I hope so. She's twenty years younger than Joan Collins!” Liz supplied.
“Just drive, will you?”
Liz winked to Gayle in the back and turned her attention to the traffic. It was still bad. City traffic was always bad, Gayle decided. Tina quizzed her about the showing, and Gayle filled her in on how she'd rushed around to see that the pictures were hung to their advantage, watching Geoffrey become neurotic, fearing that McCauley would never show up. Tina, who managed the spa where they had all met a few years before, complained about an overweight man who thought she could make him look like Sly Stallone in two weeks.
“Shall we go for valet parking?” Liz asked. Then she answered her own question. “Oh, of course we should. We're dressed up to kill and Tina isn't getting any younger here.”
Tina knocked her lightly against the nape. Liz howled softly and laughed as they drove up to the entrance. When the doors opened and Liz turned the key over to the young valet, Gayle mused that they were all dressed up to kill—and that they looked pretty damn good as a threesome. Tina was small and elegant in silver sequins and a white ermine, with midnight hair and eyes that contrasted magnificently with her outfit. Liz—tall, lean, and statuesque—was in green velvet, which was a perfect match for her eyes and an emphasis for her deep auburn hair. Gayle was a tawny blonde in black, not as tall as Liz, not as built as Tina, but somewhere in between.
Someone on the street whistled at them. They all laughed at one another and went into the building, then up to the club on the twenty-fifth floor.
It was a perfect night for Tina, Gayle thought. They were seated by the window and had a beautiful view of Richmond. Their captain was extremely attentive. Liz, who had been taking classes, ordered the wine and it was just perfect. Tina and Gayle decided to have the rack of lamb for two, and Liz decided on the salmon. They ordered Caesar salads and crab cocktails, and everything that came to them seemed to taste ambrosial. Liz, the only divorcee among them, amused them with a tale about her new baby-sitter, and Tina talked about the cop with whom she'd had her last date, complaining that he had seemed to consider the night to be target practice.
“Yet here we are, on the prowl again,” Liz said.
“We're not on the prowl!” Tina protested. “We're having dinner.”
“Ah-ha! But we're heading on to the Red Lion afterward,” Liz reminded her.
“Does that necessarily mean we're out on the prowl?” Gayle asked her.
“Well, we certainly can't dance with one another,” Tina stated. She grinned. “Face it, men are necessary.”
“Yes, and you must quit going through them like toilet paper,” Liz said.
“Would you shush! This is a very elegant place!”
Gayle laughed at the two of them and sipped her wine, marveling again that Liz had made such a good choice.
“Personally, I don't know what you're doing out anywhere,” Liz told Gayle. “Geoffrey is so darling. All these years the two of you have been together! Has it always been platonic?”
“Always,” Gayle said, smiling. “I love Geoffrey. But we're too important to each other as friends to be anything else.” Her smile faded suddenly because she wondered if she and Geoff might have been something else if Thane hadn't come into their lives at the same time. Actually, Thane had been a friend of Geoff's.
There she was, thinking about Thane again. Not that she cou
ld really picture him anymore. She was seeing him as the man in the oil painting, as a different kind of lover.
“What's the matter?” Tina asked.
Gayle looked at her, startled. “Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.”
“The deep, dark mysteries in life,” Liz said sagely. “Gayle is in deep introspection.”
“I'm not really. And I'm an open book. You both know about my one big affair. There's no mystery to it.”
“Gayle's the one who goes through men like toilet paper,” Tina reminded Liz.
“Yes, but darling, she doesn't even bother to use them!”
“Well, it's getting rough these days,” Tina said. “You feel you need to see a man's health certificate before you kiss him. What is the world coming to?”
“Celibacy?”
“Heaven forbid!” Liz laughed. “Shall we order dessert?”
They did. They ordered cheese trays and amaretto cake—with a candle for Tina. The waiters sang “Happy Birthday” and the entire room clapped, and Tina promised Liz and Gayle that she would kill them both. They laughed and started on the cake, then complained that they'd be exercising for the next two weeks but enjoyed every mouthful anyway.
The check came and Liz and Gayle split the amount between them. As they drove to the Red Lion, Gayle scooted up in the middle of the seat so that she could watch while Tina opened her presents. From Liz, the gift was her favorite perfume, and from Gayle, the negligee. She thanked them both, oohing over the nightgown, then she was curiously silent.
“I just wish I had the right guy to use them on!” She sighed.
“You wanted to be single. You wanted your career,” Liz reminded her.
“Oh, yeah, I did. But now I see time rushing past me, and I suddenly know that I want children, too. Time used to be my friend; now it's running out on me.”
Liz and Gayle both assured her with stories they'd heard about plenty of women having their first babies at forty these days. Although Tina agreed with them, Gayle realized that they really were out on the prowl: Tina wanted a mate.
They reached the Red Lion. Again, Gayle thought about what a beautiful night it was. Fresh, clean air, snow-washed—that gave an expectancy to everything around her. She felt a cool tingle race along her spine, and she smiled. Something was going to happen tonight.
No, she was imagining things.
Maybe. Maybe not. She knew how Tina felt. She had almost said something while they had been talking. She had not been able to forget the lovers in McCauley's oil painting. The feeling captured there in paint was exactly what Tina was looking for. Perhaps it was what everyone looked for, what everyone ached for. That love so complete that it combined love and passion and the greatest tenderness.
“We are all mortals beneath the stars!” Liz said suddenly, tapping Gayle upon the back. “Shall we go in? These bright anti-crime lights are great, but I can almost guarantee a molestation if you stand there tempting fate much longer.”
“It's just such a pretty night,” Gayle murmured. “Spring is in the air.”
“The stale smell of rotting fish is in the air. Come on, let's go in.”
The Red Lion was alive with music and with smoke—and with writhing bodies. A live group was playing a number by the Police, and couples were gyrating on the dance floor while people sat in small groups at dimly lit tables. Liz went to the bar and ordered a screwdriver for herself, a rusty nail for Tina, and Johnny Walker on the rocks for Gayle. Meanwhile, Tina found three seats together at the end of the bar, and the barmaid obligingly carried their drinks down that way.
“It's crowded tonight!” Gayle shouted over the din of the band.
“Very!”
“That's a group called Guts. They're good, huh?” Liz shouted.
“Hey!” Tina said. She straightened on her bar stool, trying to look over peoples' heads.
“Hey, what?” Liz demanded.
“Gayle—that's Geoffrey over there, isn't it?”
She frowned. Was Geoff here with Boobs? It wasn't really his type of place. People did come here to dance. Geoffrey liked to bring his steadies to his apartment. “Where?”
“Way over there, against the wall.”
She sat up high on her stool, but it wasn't really necessary. It was Geoffrey and he had seen them. He murmured something to the other two men at the table and stood; one of the others did likewise; the third man remained seated. Geoffrey started to thread his way through the crowd.
“It's Geoff, all right,” Gayle murmured curiously.
“Who are the other two?”
“I don't know. I can't really see them.”
Geoff broke through. He caught Gayle's hands, kissed her cheek, said hello to Liz and happy birthday to Tina. Gayle saw that the man behind him was Chad Bellows, Brent McCauley's personal manager. She leapt off her stool to take his hand with a smile. He was a tall, lean blonde with an aesthetic smile and an easy-going manner. She was glad to see him, especially since the show was tomorrow. Geoffrey had been nervous that something might go wrong, Gayle realized. She had actually been expecting something to go wrong.
“Hi, Gayle!” Chad said. Geoffrey was trying to introduce him to the others.
“Hi! It's nice to see you. It's a surprise to see you!”
“Geoff said we might run into you. It's your friend's birthday?”
“Yes.”
“Tina!” Geoff announced, turning back. “Tina, Chad Bellows; Chad, Tina Martin, Elizabeth Dowell. Can we get you a drink?”
“Just ordered, thanks, Geoff,” Gayle told him.
“Good. Come out and dance with me.”
She didn't get a chance to protest. He led her out to the floor. It was a slow number then, and she'd danced with Geoff dozens of times over the years. They fit together easily.
She pulled back a bit to look questioningly at him. “What on earth are you doing here? Why didn't you tell me you were coming?”
“I wasn't sure that we were coming here.”
“Aren't you being a little rude? There's another man with you. Why didn't you bring him over?”
“Oh, he's not the type you drag around. We'll go over to the table in a minute. And be on your best behavior, huh?”
“I'm always on my best behavior. What is this?”
The music ended. Couples began leaving the floor.
“The end of the song,” Geoff laughed. “Come on—”
He broke off. Gayle was already looking toward the back, toward the table.
The third man was standing, leaning against the wall.
He was staring at Gayle. Across the length of the room. Through the crowd.
And Gayle felt it. Felt the power of his look, despite the distance. Felt his eyes, raking over her, piercing into her, searing through her...
He was tall, as tall as or taller than Chad or Geoffrey. His hair was nearly black; in the artificial light of the lounge, it appeared ebony, as pitch as the darkest night. The others were dressed in three-piece suits; he was wearing a light blue denim western shirt, a casual beige jacket, and blue jeans. He was broad-shouldered, well muscled, and dark-eyed, with handsome, thick brows. She judged him to be in his mid-thirties, with a well-sculpted face, nice firm jaw, high cheekbones, long, straight nose, and a firm, sensual mouth. He was shatteringly attractive, arresting in the most masculine, rough-and-tough sense. He wasn't smiling; he was just looking at her. Studying her, as if she were a portrait, a piece of art to be carefully evaluated and judged.
And it was so strange. So very, very strange. It was as if he had waited a long, long time to study her.
Her palms were wet, she realized. Her knees were weak, and a streak of white heat seemed to be searing along her spine. She knew that she had never met him before, and yet he looked strangely familiar to her, as if she had known him before.
She was dimly aware that she was staring at him as blatantly as he was staring at her. She felt as if mist swirled around her. For the most fleeting of seconds, she felt as if sh
e had actually blacked out. As if something had...happened.
Between the two of them.
Gayle cleared her throat, gripping Geoffrey's arm. “Who-who is he?” she asked him.
“Who?” he said innocently.
“That man! The man with you. Who is he, Geoff?”
“Oh, him? The tall guy over there?” Geoff laughed. “Tall, dark, muscular, and handsome? Why that's just that scurvy old hermit with the dirty beard you've been dreading all week.”
“What?”
“That's the old hermit. The artist—Brent McCauley. I think he's been waiting to meet you.”
Waiting...yes.
Gayle shivered and swallowed. She had the most curious feeling that she had been waiting to meet him, too. Waiting...all of her life.
CHAPTER 2
Who is she?
Brent had voiced the question to Geoffrey several minutes ago. It still rang loudly in his mind. A ripple of heat and excitement knifed through him, settling in the pit of his gut. For a moment, it seemed to steal his breath away like a crippling blow. It was almost as if he had seen her before, and yet he knew that he hadn't. He wouldn't have forgotten her. The sensations that streaked into him at the first sight of her were so strong, almost painful. He hadn't been able to walk over to the women with Chad and Geoff. He had barely been able to move. He had forced out some kind of casual comment, and then he had played the eccentric artist with an “I'll-wait-here-you-bring-your-friends-to-me,” type of comment.
And now she was coming.
If he had ever known her, he would have definitely remembered her. She was medium tall, slim, extremely shapely. What he'd noticed first was her hair—a head of long, lush, honey-blond hair, falling over one shoulder. What he'd noticed next had been her back—a gorgeous back, long, supple, graceful. As an artist, he'd been impatient with the swatch of black cloth that covered that elusive, flowing spine from the waist down. The temptation was to rush to her in the midst of the crowd and snatch away the offending fabric. It would, of course, be rather difficult to explain that he was undressing her in the name of art. She was the most elegantly sensual woman he had ever seen, from the flash in her eyes to the quiet, confident sway of her hips. She was the perfect, fascinating woman...
Every Time I Love You Page 2