by Michele Hart
Smoochy hopped into his lap, and he scratched the cute pooch behind the ear until her foot wagged. “Elissa hasn’t returned the one voice-mail I left her in the three days she’s been away.”
Penny scowled and appeared to fight a mental battle. “I’m not supposed to tell you this.”
“Tell me, anyway.”
“If you tell her I told you, I’ll get you back in an ugly way.”
“Something tells me you really would. Tell me the secret.”
“Elissa’s cell phone has been shut off.”
Greg sat back into the tweed couch, relieved to hear his unreturned calls weren’t ignored on purpose. She probably didn’t know he’d called her a few times. Still, it bothered him that she could’ve told him her phone was out, borrowed Penny’s phone to say hi, or hint that she thought of him as much as he thought of her.
Something’s got to give. This budding relationship just can’t drift away like this, too easy to walk away from.
Last night he decided he would make it harder for Elissa to sneak away. Greg sensed he should take a little action. There were a few things he needed to know.
“Penny, Elissa doesn’t talk much about her life, and she’s often preoccupied. What’s her life like?”
Penny blinked a few seconds. “Oh, get her talking. I’m sure she’ll put out a few childhood tales.”
He got the feeling Penny guarded something. “Come on, Penny. Help me crack her shell. She’s intentionally shutting me out. I’m a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Penny rolled her eyes at him. “You really can’t determine that until after the damage is done.”
“Trust me,” Greg tried again. “I’m trying to keep her from going off-track.”
Penny’s face bore no sympathy. “Whose track, yours or hers?”
He decided not to answer that.
Instead, he asked, “Is Elissa’s life really filled with school and work, and nothing else?”
“She’s working hard to stay above water. She’s pretty focused on that.”
“No.” Greg shook his head. “It’s more than books and planets driving her on. No one’s that in love with the stars. What great career does she plan in astronomy? What great success or money could she hope for staring through telescopes?”
Penny smirked at him, disappointment in pinched lips. “Sometimes it’s not about money or success. Sometimes it’s about love.”
It’s about love, the words echoed through his head. Oh God. That’s a show-stopper.
“Didn’t Elissa say she works at the planetarium? Is there a teacher or a scientist she could be fascinated with?”
His question seemed to surprise Penny. “Are you asking me if Elissa is in love with another man?”
Was he asking that? “Yes, that’s what I’m asking.”
“Greg, Elissa doesn’t sleep with one man when she’s in love with another.”
He didn’t comment, but he’d seen girls who did, slept with other men when the ones they wanted weren’t interested. Greg wanted to be the man Elissa wanted. The problem was, he didn’t know her well enough to figure if she’d sleep with him when her mind was on another man, and that had to stop right here.
Penny stared off in a corner, tucked her legs under her, taking longer time than gave him comfort. Then she regarded him seriously. “Elissa is in love with an idea.”
Greg sat forward, set his elbows to his knees. “An idea?”
“Yes,” Penny said plainly. “I don’t know how you’ll change that. It may be a waste of your time and just plain wrong of you to try.”
Just plain wrong? Not a chance. Greg bent his mind to getting his way. “What’s Elissa’s weakness?”
Penny shook her head, a shaming glare taunting him. “You Rubia brat. You just want me to hand you the keys, don’t you? Just hand the keys to Elissa’s heart over to you for your merciless debauchery.”
“Well, yes, merciless debauchery, and maybe more.”
Penny tapped a finger on her chin. “Elissa is in need of merciless debauchery at the hands of a handsome man....”
“I’ll be gentle,” he promised.
Penny put a finger in his face. “Promise to return her in the same condition you found her?”
“I’ll return her just like I found her.”
She emitted a disbelieving noise, looking him over like a bug she targeted for a spray of poison.
“You’re not the kind of guy who wouldn’t leave a mark. If you want my help, you have to tell me exactly what you’re looking for from her, Greg. What about Elissa has you in a twist?”
He launched a smile just picturing Elissa in his bed, her luxurious paprika locks of hair tossed over his pillow, her leg curling into the bed sheets. He wanted to see that over and over again. “History. I like things with history.”
Penny’s brow crashed. “I didn’t know you and Elissa had any history together. She’d told me she’d just met you.”
“Oh, yeah. We just met. But in twenty years, we’ll have history together, and that’s what I’m after.”
Penny shook her head, unpleased with his answer. “Isn’t there some super-model socialite you can settle for? Elissa really does have plans for her life.”
Greg ran his hands through his hair, blank to know his next move. “This isn’t just a common thing here. Elissa never leaves my mind. She’s the only thing in the room. We have lightning chemistry together. If we don’t have the time and the chance to see if it could be something big, we might both miss out on what could’ve been the right thing.”
“Ah,” Penny whined. “You’re out wife-hunting, are you, Greg?”
“No. That’s the odd part. I wasn’t looking for a woman, had put off the thought of a long-term relationship until my mid-thirties. I’ve been too busy for women since my father’s death a year ago. I’d come home from college and had taken over the family business at a time of turmoil, haven’t taken much of a break, which was the genesis of my friends’ practical joke, actually.
“On the eve of my family business about to soar, all my hard work just beginning to pay off and more hard work ahead, Elissa appeared in my restaurant, glowing with the anger of an avenging fire-angel. She was beautiful. I couldn’t take my eyes off her that night, and she hasn’t left my mind yet.”
“The next pretty face will make you forget her, Greg.”
“No,” he insisted. “This is different. Whatever it is, it’s stopping me in my tracks.”
Penny disapproved yet again. “Rubia brats. You’ve materialized in her life magically, and you’re sure she should just drop her life and latch on to your gravy train.”
Greg took a deep breath to clear his head for strategic maneuvers. Penny was a tough nut to crack. Somehow he had to make her see things his way. He could see she frowned on the fact that he’d grown up in a family of privilege, affording better shots at life. All that and his own hard work had placed him where he was today.
“Honestly, Greg, is there anything in your whole life you’ve wanted that hasn’t been handed to you?”
“Yeah,” he replied, knowing the answer right away, which told him something about himself. “True love. My parents had true love, and it was a beautiful thing to grow up watching. My father was a wise man, a smart man, spent his whole life with my mother, never far from a smile. He always told me to hold the girl who stops me in my tracks. That’s what he did. My mother’s beautiful inside and out, and she stopped my father in his tracks. For me, that woman is Elissa.”
The skepticism in her expression told him he wasn’t winning. “Greg. You’re going to find women who will stop you in your tracks all your life, draw you in bewildering ways. It’s not a good reason for you to put a halt to Elissa’s life so you can figure it out. What she wants is just as important as what you want.”
“Who says they have to be different things?”
“Because you’re from different worlds with different values. Elissa doesn’t know your kind of life, Greg. You have al
l the security and beauty of life money can buy, can solve most any problem with money. Elissa’s grown up on the bottom edge of middle class with little but her dreams.”
Greg shook his head. Penny didn’t know him. If Elissa was the right woman for him, he’d change her dreams. She’d share his dreams.
“I wouldn’t want Elissa to be unhappy. But none of that is important if we never get the chance to learn what we could give each other.”
Unsettled, Penny leaned back into the couch and examined him, stern in expression. “I really would like to see Elissa happy in more ways than just a college degree.”
A magic moment. Greg now held an ally.
He gave Penny’s hints some thought. Elissa was in love with an idea, and an idea wasn’t hard to compete with. He could do one thing an idea couldn’t do. Love her back.
“Give me a shot. Don’t underestimate what’s going on here. What’s your best advice, Penny?”
She gave the question thought. “You both lost your fathers, start there. You’re on the right trail. Keep interrupting her life. Make her deal with you.”
Greg grappled with shame to admit, “I think I’ve gone too far on that count already.”
The apartment door blew open, crashing into the wall behind it. A scowl-faced Elissa marched into the apartment wearing her short Reno’s uniform and barefoot, her high heels and pantyhose in one fist. She looked angry, and weepy, and tired.
Her eyes discovered Greg and bloomed in size, surprised to see him at her place, but then she went back to a look of utter misery. “I just lost my new job.”
Johnny-on-the-spot, Greg rose and put his arm over her shoulder, ready to comfort her. “Oh, Elissa, that’s bad news. Come in and sit down.”
Snatching a bottle of water from the refrigerator for her, Greg settled her beside him on the couch. He drove the guilt into a shadowed place in his subconscious for now.
The picture of wretchedness, Elissa sniffled, and explained, “The manager told me he’d over-hired, and needed to let me go. I don't get it. The place was packed. Damn it.... I really needed that job.”
Penny shot Greg an accusatory glare, and he knew she just figured out how he’d gone too far. He rubbed Elissa’s shoulders in an effort to console her.
“Don’t worry about anything, Elissa,” he said over her and out of her sight, but straightly cast at Penny. “You worry too much.”
Penny scrubbed her fingers together to mean money.
“I’ll cover whatever bill is breathing down your neck.”
Elissa looked up to him, glassy-eyed. He hadn’t realized her money problems had her close to tears. He hadn’t thought the situation in such dire condition, but the tears in her eyes testified to the opposite.
“I’m not borrowing money from you,” Elissa blurted. “The idea feels icky, and I don’t like it. I won’t consider it.”
“It's not a loan. It's award money. You saved Rubia’s three cases of wine. Rubia’s owes you, no matter how you wish to think of it.”
He held out his hand as though it was an honest business deal, but the abhorrent swell of her lip said she wasn’t interested. “I don’t like any specter of money between us.”
Well, Greg didn’t like that either, but very often money quickly solved problems, and this was one instance.
Elissa rubbed her neck, and he moved his massage to rub the tension away. “I hadn’t expected to find you here, waiting for me.”
“Happy surprise, I hope,” Greg replied, treading delicately. “I was just in the neighborhood.”
If one called Tampa the neighborhood and thirty miles away was just down the street.
Elissa looked pitifully depressed. “I’d like to get out of these clothes.”
“Penny will need to leave. Things are gonna get X-rated around here.”
“I can leave,” Penny interjected.
Elissa cast them both tired sneers, then she couldn’t help but chuckle a little. The smallest smile made her prettier.
“Go ahead and change into comfortable clothes. Penny will entertain me.”
Penny and Greg watched Elissa drag herself from the couch and disappear behind her bedroom door.
As soon as the door clicked, Penny put her finger in Greg’s face. “You better hope I never get mad at you. I have deep dirt on you now. Having her fired from Club Reno’s was a naughty thing to do. Elissa would be livid if she caught you pulling some big act of control again.”
“I’m not attempting to control her. If she worked nights, we couldn’t pass as involved in front of the guys who’ve bet against us, and Elissa needs that money, don’t you think? At this point, she’s probably counting on it. You heard her say she won’t take a buck from me.”
Penny gave an indignant huff, completely unconvinced. “She’d’ve made more money from the job. This is no longer a good deal for her.”
Greg swatted her negativity away. “Tomorrow, the Bay Cook-off will be an important appearance. Allen and Jerry will be there, and knowing them, they’ll watch our every move, ready to defend their grand. I have plans to make it hurt for them.
“Elissa’s mind is somewhere else, not wholly on what’s going on between us. She’s building walls. If I didn’t take any action to seize her time, the month would pass without the opportunity I want with her. I’m crafting a situation to keep her beside me.”
“If you do her wrong, just a little wrong,” Penny vowed, issuing a headstrong sweep of her hand, “I let this rip.”
Greg whipped out his stunning smile. “Would you like to go to the Bay Cook-off? I could introduce you to my cousin Julian.”
Penny blossomed like a flower on fast-forward, instantly stolen away from her threat, her surprised grin plastered across her face. No poker face here. “You’d do that for me?”
“One of the most eligible bachelors in the Bay area, about to win his eighth Bay Cook-off title.”
Greg shifted his eyes in a slick and dangerous invitation. “I could make it happen for you, if you could ease my way here and there in my goal.”
Penny first confirmed the bedroom door closed behind her, guaranteeing their conversation went unheard, then she feigned thought.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to trade my loyalty to Elissa for the chance to get the notice of a big, handsome Italian chef, the cutest bear of a man any kitchen ever saw? Julian Rubia isn’t a man. He’s a magical creature.”
Greg belted another laugh, couldn’t imagine what a woman saw when she looked at Julian, just a cousin and a good friend to him. Greg could remember childhood dirt wars when Julian, a few years older than Greg and always bigger, held him down and smashed mud pies in his face on a regular basis.
Julian was one talented bastard with a spatula and a pretty nice guy. Greg had no reservations to putting Elissa’s best friend in the same room as Julian, a respecter of short, spunky brunettes. What if sparks flew between them? Couldn’t hurt Greg’s cause.
Penny’s eyes shifted from side to side. “I feel as though I’m making a pact with the Devil. You got a deal. I’ll trade my loyalty to Elissa, clearly of little value, for a shot at meeting Julian Rubia.”
“Yes.”
“And I get to look at him, watch him cook from afar?”
Greg nodded. “Maybe even up close.”
Her suspicious eyes steady on him, she conceded, “Looks like we’re partners-in-crime now. How clever of you to drag me into your iniquity. This doesn’t mean I’ll let you hurt her. In fact, I’ll be doubly mad at you for betraying me, as well.”
“I better be good, then.”
“I’m glad we understand each other. Does this mean we can develop a cool secret handshake that makes everyone wonder what we’re plotting?”
“Yeah, we’ll have to put some thought into that.”
Penny smiled, rose, and headed for the door.
“Wear shorts. Julian’s a leg man. We leave at noon tomorrow.”
“I assume that means you’re spending the night?�
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“Here, take a distraction from that question.” Greg stretched to the wine case he’d brought, and passed her a bottle of Pinot Grigio from the case he’d hauled from the car.
“It’s a really good label. We’re ordering more. Take this home with you. You’ll like it.”
Penny reached for the bottle’s neck, and she examined the label.
“Made by monks in an Italian monastery.”
She pursed her lips at the comment. “So many monks and nuns involved in making alcohol. Has there ever been a study to determine if nuns and monks make the best wine?”
“Ever seen more miserable drunks than celibate people? They know wines. Besides, it’s Julian’s favorite label.”
Penny nodded her head. “Point taken. Thanks for the wine. I’ll save it for a happy event. Good luck tonight, partner,” she said, as she headed for the exit, bottle in one hand, cute dog in the other.
“Thanks,” he replied, and Penny and Smoochy disappeared for the night, the door closing them out of his playing field.
Now Greg had new information and an accomplice, two if he counted Smoochy. He felt well armed.
After loading the refrigerator with the Pinot, he paced a bit, plotting his step-by-step maneuvers to keep Elissa in his sights. He felt like a general plotting invasions.
Sure of his woman-handling skills, he paced to the kitchen and opened cabinets until he came across some wine glasses. He drew one of the bottles of Chianti from the case he brought with them. Twisting the cork from the bottle, his eyes swept over her kitchen for clues to Elissa’s life.
Tucked behind the phone mounted on the kitchen wall, he found a batch of bills. Too nosey for his own good, he went through them to see most on second and final notices, and the electricity was overdue. There was also a call for payment on book loans. It was no wonder why losing her job worried her so.
These bills were in his way. Greg needed to remove the things that would steal her concentration from him. Out of sight, out of mind. He folded the overdue bills into a short stack, and he shoved them in a pocket of his jeans.