by Francis Ray
Her heart thudded. Ignoring the tug of the seat belt, she turned until she faced Kane. “Then you’ve decided to say yes.”
Kane looked at her with unreadable black eyes.
“I’ve decided to get to know you,” he corrected.
“Beyond that, I’m not making any promises except one.”
“What’s that?”
“I always kiss my date good night and, regardless of what you say, tonight you’re my date.”
Chapter 4
Victoria recoiled. Her heart rate soared. “There’ll be no more sen—unnecessary kissing.”
“It might have been unnecessary, but we both enjoyed it,” Kane said bluntly.
“Tolerated might be a better word,” Victoria said, sitting against the door and staring at the downtown skyline.
“Are you always this dishonest about your emotions or is it just for me?”
Her head whipped around. “You have no right to say anything like that about me.”
Kane cut her a quick glance. “Maybe not, but I told you I believe in honesty, and if you want my help, you better remember that.”
“Just because I won’t stroke your ego, you call me dishonest.”
“If I wasn’t driving this car, we’d both be stroking something else,” Kane said, pulling into the Wellington Restaurant’s crowded parking lot.
Victoria’s throat dried. “Why do you keep saying things like that?”
Shutting off the motor, Kane unbuckled his seat belt and twisted toward her. “Because I remember a young woman who refused to give in to her fears, yet twelve years later, this same woman has locked herself behind a wall she dares anyone, especially a man, to try and climb over.”
The truth of his statement annoyed Victoria. She had cut herself off, but she had never regretted it until now. Kane might have been her friend under different circumstances. “You make me sound like some princess in a tower.”
Kane shook his dark head. “A princess wants to be rescued. You’re happy locked away from the world. The only thing I can’t figure out is why you have to get married.”
She watched him wearily. “I thought Bonnie explained everything to you.”
“Only what I told you,” he admitted and sent her a raking glance. “With a life like yours, you have about as much use for a man as I have for another head.”
She opened her mouth to berate him for his cavalier judgment of her, but nothing came out. Instead, she studied the tight set of Kane’s shoulders, the tighter set of his mouth. Thus far, he had asked nothing from her except honesty and she had given him anything but.
He awakened too many old fears. He was closer than he thought in scaling her wall of defense. “You wouldn’t understand.”
His eyes narrowed. “I might if you told me. I want to be your friend, Tory.”
Seeing no way out of her problem, she drew in a deep breath and told him about her grandmother’s ultimatum, including her own fabrication of having four men to choose from. She concluded by saying, “I’m as much to blame for this as my grandmother, but I’ve worked too hard to lose Lavender and Lace.”
“I’m your last hope, huh?”
She gripped her purse. Letting Kane know how desperate she was wasn’t a good idea, yet her being with him told its own story. “Let’s just say I don’t see anyone else trying to scale the tower wall.”
“Some men are afraid of a few thorns. Come on, let’s eat dinner and, if you’re nice, I’ll pretend not to hear you moan when I kiss you good night.”
She had never been so embarrassed in her entire life. After Kane’s outlandish remark, the night had gone downhill. They hadn’t been seated five minutes before she knocked over her water glass. Each time she looked at Kane his gaze strayed to her lips and her stomach muscles clenched. His velvet laugh made the knot tighten and her annoyance rise. She had barely made it through dinner. She didn’t want to feel anything for the man now patiently holding out her door key for her.
“Tory, don’t be so hard on yourself. How could you have known that by trying to snatch the check from our waiter you would hit another waiter in the stomach, causing him to drop all those dishes?” The teasing smile on Kane’s dark face was in direct opposition to his soothing words. “Don’t worry, I left a big tip and paid for all the spilled food.”
Victoria gritted her teeth against recalling the shock and humiliation of hearing the waiter’s surprised grunt, the ominous sound of clinking china as the plates slid off the tray. Even worse was the memory of Kane literally snatching her out of the way of raining salad, oysters and soup.
“Tomorrow night we’ll go someplace where it won’t matter if you break every glass in the place,” Kane placated.
First thing tomorrow, she thought menacingly, she was going to check on buying a pot of oil. In the meantime, she’d give him his kiss. But she’d give absolutely nothing of herself. “Just get it over with.” Shutting her eyes, she tilted her head back.
Something soft and warm brushed against her forehead. Then nothing.
Opening her eyes, she searched for Kane. He was headed for the elevator. Without thought she ran after him. “You come back her, Kane Taggart. For the past hour and a half you had me worried about you kissing me and then you barely touch me?”
He turned. Black eyes twinkled. “Complaining?”
Her head snapped back. “Certainly not.”
“I think you are. Tomorrow night we’ll do it longer and slower.”
“We will not.”
“We will if you want my help.”
“You’re not touching me again.”
His gaze darkened with promise. “Wanna bet?”
Gasping, she stepped back. “You are no gentleman.”
“I don’t remember that as being one of your requirements.” Spinning on his heels, he started down the hallway.
“We don’t have to go out again. You can tell me your decision now.” She’d had all of the man she could stand.
“I never make any important decisions without sleeping on it first. Be ready at nine P.M.” He never slowed his pace.
Fury swept through her. She was fighting for her life and he was being stubborn. “You make me so mad I could scream.”
Stepping into the empty elevator, he faced her. “Someday I’m gong to make you scream for an entirely different reason.”
Her insides clenched. She closed her eyes against the sensual promise in his eyes from thirty feet away. When she had the courage to open them again, he was gone. She groaned. Things weren’t working out at all the way she had planned. She had wanted her future husband to be malleable and easily disposed of. Kane was neither. Worse, he was intent on making her sexually aware of him, and so far he was doing a darned good job.
Returning to her apartment, she saw a door a few feet ahead of her close. A tenant had moved in a few weeks ago and Victoria still had not met the new occupant. Mortification caused her to quicken her steps. This was all Kane’s fault. Well, tomorrow night she’d show him she was in charge, then she’d get on with her life without a man cluttering it up. Feeling more herself, Victoria gave serious thought to locating a pot for the boiling oil.
* * *
Victoria was restocking sachets in an eighteenth century armoire when she saw them through the plate glass window of Lavender and Lace. Something was wrong. Her grandmother’s usually perfect gray hair looked windblown and two of the buttons down the front of her chiffon dress were unfastened. The pearls she always wore were missing—Henry Benson had given them to Clair on their wedding day and Victoria couldn’t remember a single time seeing her grandmother without them.
Her grandfather, who prided himself on wearing dapper-looking ascots, was without one. The wind lifted his blue sports jacket, revealing the absence of his trademark red suspenders. Her always impeccably groomed grandparents looked as if they had dressed in a great hurry. Something disastrous must have happened for them to appear in public so disheveled.
They hung onto each
other as if they were past their endurance. Worse, her strait-laced grandfather wasn’t stopping at the door, as he usually did. On an ordinary day, he was embarrassed just looking at the lingerie-clad mannequins in the window.
Fear propelled Victoria across the room. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“My poor darling Victoria,” cried her grandmother as she sniffed into a linen handkerchief with a two-inch border of lace.
“I’ll beat the scoundrel like the dog he is,” Henry Benson flared, his five-feet-five frame quivering with indignation.
Frowning, Victoria looked from one to the other. “What are you talking about?”
“The second cousin to God of course,” Clair said, as if her statement made perfect sense.
“Perhaps we should continue this in my office.” Victoria turned to the young sales clerk. “Lacy, I don’t want to be disturbed.”
Leading her grandparents into her office, she sat them on the couch and drew up a chair in front of them. “Now, start from the beginning.”
“It’s . . . it’s all my fault. I never dreamed something like this would happen.” Clair leaned her head against Henry’s shoulder.
“Grandmother, what are you talking about?”
“The scoundrel you had the argument with last night at your apartment,” Henry explained. “We know all about you having to submit to his baseness. Margaret Tillman heard you arguing with him.”
“It’s my fault.” Clair dabbed her teary eyes, but it was clearly a losing battle. “As soon as I hung up the phone from talking with Margaret, we got dressed and rushed over here. Victoria, you must believe me when I say that I never thought things would turn out this way. I can’t stop the loan being called in, but there has to be something we can do so you don’t have to . . . have to . . .” She looked at her husband for support.
The hand Henry had around his wife’s shoulder tightened. He looked at his granddaughter with blazing anger in his brown eyes. “You will maintain your honor.”
The pieces clicked into place for Victoria. Apparently Margaret Tillman was the new tenant who had been listening to Victoria’s and Kane’s conversation. Margaret must not have heard the word “kiss,” only words like “touching” and “it.” Victoria looked at the two people she loved most in the world and hugged them both. “We were talking about a kiss.”
“Margaret said he towered over you and the floor shook when he walked and his voice boomed like thunder,” Clair persisted, apparently thinking the description aptly described a celestial being.
“Kane is big, but even he can’t shake a sixteen-story building when he walks. His voice is melodious, not boisterous,” Victoria said, not realizing her voice had softened. “I wouldn’t go out with the kind of man you just described.”
Clair and Henry traded glances. Relief visibly washed over them. Victoria found herself being hugged once again amid murmurs of apology.
“No apology needed. I’m glad you care.” Victoria straightened. “Although, I think I’m going to have a talk with my new neighbor. She sounds like a busybody.”
“As a matter of fact, she is,” Henry admitted. “I guess she wasn’t wearing her hearing aid last night. I can’t imagine a woman in her sixties being that vain. Mildred Booth recommended the apartment to her.”
Victoria threw up her hands. “I knew I should have moved.”
“Your marriage should take care of that nicely.” Once more in control, Clair placed her handkerchief into her black patent handbag, then set about restoring some semblance of order to her clothes and her hair. Henry did the same.
“Grandmother—”
Clair smiled. “You don’t know how you relieved our minds. For a while I thought I might have made a mistake. Might we assume since you’re discussing a goodnight kiss that you have narrowed the field without our help?”
Only someone of her grandmother’s generation would consider a kiss significant. “You might.”
“Is he the cattleman?”
Victoria twisted in her seat. “Yes, Grandfather. He is.”
Henry helped Clair to her feet. “Come, Mother, we mustn’t overstay. First, I think you forgot something.” He pulled a strand of lustrous pearls out of his coat pocket and fastened them around his wife’s neck.
Clair took a snowy white neck scarf from her purse and tied it around Henry’s neck. For a long moment they shared a special smile.
He turned to Victoria. “We’re sorry we doubted you. It will be our pleasure to tell Margaret to mind her own business the next time you and your young man are having a discussion.”
Considering she and Kane had a tendency to strike sparks off each other, Victoria thought that might be a wise thing to do.
Gravel crunched beneath the tires of the Mercedes as Kane pulled into a vacant parking space between two trucks. “We’re here.”
“Here” was the Cuttin’ Inn, a country-western dance club. Somehow Victoria wasn’t surprised. She glanced around the crowded parking lot. “It’s a good thing I didn’t try to find your truck here.”
“That’s a fact,” Kane said, loosening his tie.
“What . . . what are you doing?” she asked unsteadily, glancing around the dimly lit parking lot.
“I’m taking enough of a chance going in there wearing dress pants. A coat and tie would send the boys into a fit of laughter so hard they’d probably fall down.” He looped the tie over the mirror. “Only thing is that when they got up, they’d tease me into next year.”
“These boys are your rodeo friends?”
His fingers hesitated over the top button of his white shirt. “Some of them are. Now, what are we going to do about you?”
“Me?”
“Suits and dance halls don’t mix, and if someone got out of hand, I might hit and think later. The double-breasted jacket goes and the hair comes down.”
“No. They’ll accept me as I am or not at all.”
Kane leaned back in his seat. “They’ll accept you. I just want them to like the woman I might marry.”
Victoria played with the clasp of her handbag. “I was planning on telling as few people as possible.”
“Well, that’s out. If there is a marriage, my family and friends will be there. Understand that now. That’s one thing that’s not negotiable,” Kane said through stiff lips, his mustache a slash of black.
“You can’t have everything your way.”
“If I had things my way, you’d be too busy kissing me to do any arguing.”
Victoria went hot, then cold. “This is a business—”
“Arrangement. Yeah, I know. So this business partner says we’re going inside and dance. Tonight, when you met me at the door with a smile, I thought we might be able to get through one evening without arguing. I guess I was wrong.” Opening the car door, he got out and slammed it shut. Victoria winced. Her door opened. “Come on,” he said.
Slowly she got out of the car. Kane was right. She had started the evening determined to stop reacting to him emotionally and physically and show him her best side. That was easier said than done. “You, you didn’t take off your coat,” she stammered.
“It doesn’t matter.”
Victoria knew why his jacket didn’t matter. One look at Kane’s face and only someone with a death wish would laugh at him. Besides, he was right about the marriage. If there was one, her grandmother would shout it from the rooftop.
“Don’t I have any say in whether we go inside or not?”
“Over my shoulder or walking?”
Kane didn’t mince words. Whether she liked it or not, his meaning was out there for you to examine. Where else was she going to find an honest man on such short notice? She needed Kane. She mustn’t forget that.
One hairpin, then another came out of her hair until all six were in her hand. Her hair fell into a luxurious black disarray around her shoulders. Putting the hairpins into her purse, she combed her fingers through the dark tumbling mass of curls, then removed her raspberry colored jacke
t and tossed it onto the front seat.
“Do you always pout when you don’t get your way?”
“Men don’t pout.” His blue coat landed on top of hers. His fingers laced her own. “You’ll enjoy the place.”
“That remains to be seen. Let’s see what the boys have to say about us.”
Not a word.
Seven mouths were open, but nothing came out. Their owners were too busy looking. The five men and two women sitting in a curved booth at the back of the huge room hadn’t said one word since Kane introduced Victoria as his friend. The only thing that moved were their heads as they looked from Kane to Victoria then back again.
“Are they always like this?” Victoria asked, her voice raised to be heard over the live band and the male singer’s mournful voice lamenting his lost love.
Kane smiled tightly. “I think your beauty has made them speechless. But enough is enough,” he said to his friends. “Or you’ll make Tory nervous.”
The man sitting closest to her jerked his straw hat off his balding pate and scrambled to his feet. The rest, including the two women, followed. “Beg your pardon, Miss Chandler, it’s just that Kane never brought a lady—ouch!” He turned to the person who had elbowed him. The man nodded toward Kane.
Victoria’s gaze followed. Kane’s face was stern and forbidding, his body rigid.
“Pay no attention to Kane,” Victoria said. “He’s probably unhappy because he wants to dance.”
The eyes went back to Kane, their mouths opened. “Is there anything wrong with that?” Kane asked.
Seven heads whipped back and forth.
“No.”
“Not a thing.”
Victoria took Kane’s large hand in hers. “Come on and let’s dance, before you turn into a bigger grouch.”
Once on the wooden floor, couples swaying around her, her bravado faded. No matter how she tried to pretend otherwise, Kane did strange things to her equilibrium. She didn’t understand it, she certainly didn’t like it, but it was there nonetheless. “If you’d rather not dance, I’ll understand,” she said.