by Sandra Brown
"All right, Shay," she said to herself as she sat contemplating the rushing stream, "he's got a great body, and he's as handsome as a warrior angel. But he's diametrically opposite you as far as temperament and philosophy go."
Even the fact that Celia, with John's gentle encouragement, had successfully baited a fish hook couldn't distract Shay from her musings.
Forgetting Ian's physical appearance for a moment—if that were possible—she concentrated on the man he was. Why, when he represented the kind of person she had previously scorned, was she so attracted to him? Why had she thought she might very well die if he didn't kiss her that morning? Why did she still yearn to feel his lips against hers, to have his hands caressing her, not accidentally but with the full intent and purpose of loving her?
Then it struck her. Like a lightning bolt out of the blue, she realized that part of her attraction stemmed from the fact that he ignored her. Was that it? "Of course," she said aloud, then looked chagrined when Celia and John looked toward her curiously.
That had to be it. Shay Morrison was too intelligent, too worldly, too self-sufficient to believe that one look at a naked man, no matter how handsome, had left her as starry-eyed as a teenager. Love at first sight didn't happen. Besides, her feelings for the man were barely above detestation. Her curiosity was simply piqued because he seemed so uncurious about her.
Yet she knew with every feminine instinct that he wasn't as impervious to her as he pretended to be. She chuckled as a plan for the evening began to unfold in her mind. They might never see each other again, but she'd be damned before she'd let Reverend Ian Douglas dismiss her completely from his thoughts.
"I think I'll head back, if you don't mind," she said, jumping up from her grassy seat on the bank. "I'm going to rest awhile before dinner."
"We'll follow shortly," her mother replied. "I'm bound and determined to catch a fish."
Judging from the high color in his face and his fidgety hands, John seemed to have other things in mind for when they were left alone in the woods. Shay was still smiling when she approached the house. She climbed the stairs and headed toward the partially opened door at the end of the hall.
She tapped softly on it. "Ian?"
There was a pause before he said, "Yes, come in."
She pushed the door open and arranged herself in its frame. The wide window on the landing was behind her. She knew golden sunlight was spilling around her like a halo, shining through her hair, bathing her skin with light. "I hope I'm not disturbing you," she said, hoping just the opposite.
"No. I've still go some studying to do, but I'm almost finished." He was sitting at a paper-strewn desk. A Bible and several research books lay open on it. A portable typewriter contained a piece of paper on which several lines had been typed.
"Mom and John will be along in a while." Why wouldn't he look directly at her? He seemed intent on mutilating a paperclip with fingers she could swear were nervous.
"How's the fishing?" he asked, glancing up. His blue eyes made a rapid inspection of her legs in the shorts she'd worn to the stream, and a lengthier inspection of her bare midriff below her halter top, before he dropped his eyes once again to the infernal paperclip.
"John had caught three when I left. Mom's still working on a bite."
"Good, good," he said in a voice that told her he didn't care anymore about the results of the fishing expedition than she did.
"Do you need the bathroom?" she asked, stretching her arms lazily over her head.
"Uh … no," he said. "No."
"I'm going to take a nice long bubble bath before dinner." She dropped her arms and shook her body as though in eager anticipation of the sensual luxury of the bath. The motion caused her breasts to move bewitchingly beneath her top. A motion, if his dazed expression was any indication, that didn't go undetected.
"Fine.I don't … won't … you'll have the bathroom to yourself."
"Okay," she said offhandedly before she pivoted on her heel and left the doorjamb.
Minutes later, the tapping sound made by the keys of his manual typewriter came through the connecting door. That he was still able to work vexed Shay as she lay in the tubful of hot, bubbly water. But she smiled slyly when she recalled the uneasy look on his face each time his eyes had wandered in her direction. He was well aware of her as a woman. Even if his mind willed it not to be so, his body defied him.
Of course Shay didn't want to go any further than mild flirtation. She only wanted to pay him back for the times he had looked at her with tolerant amusement, much as one would look at a willful child. He deserved to be paid back for the humiliation he'd heaped on her.
When she was finished with her bath, making as many splashing noises as she could and humming "The Summer of '42" under her breath, she rinsed out her lingerie in the sink and draped each sheer, lacy article on the shower curtain rod. Though she usually slept in the raw, she'd brought along a nightgown in case her mother complained. It hung on a hook behind the door connecting to his room. Each time he reached for the doorknob, he would come in contact with the silky yellow fabric trimmed with ecru lace as fine as a spider's web. If he moved it, he'd have to handle it even more. Before leaving the steamy bathroom, she misted it heavily with her perfume.
She tapped on the bathroom door. The typing ceased abruptly. "Yes, Shay?"
"I'm all done now. The bathroom's yours if you need it."
"Thanks," was all he said, though it was a long time before she heard the typewriter again.
She knew her scheme had failed when he came down to dinner. John and Celia had returned in plenty of time to rest and clean up before the evening meal. As promised, John cooked succulent steaks and baked potatoes on an outdoor charcoal grill. Shay and Celia prepared a huge tossed green salad and all the trimmings.
Shay was ladling sour cream from the carton into a serving dish when Ian pushed through the swinging door smelling of soap and his distinctive cologne. "I'm starving. When's dinner?" The jauntiness of his walk and the carefree lilt in his voice worried her. He shouldn't be feeling nearly so cocky.
Celia laughed charmingly at him. "Just like your father. He's outside cooking the steaks. He said to join him when you came down. There's a beer for you in the refrigerator."
"Thank you."
As he crouched down in front of the refrigerator, Shay looked down at him over a bare shoulder. Her sundress had a straight bodice with nothing but strings crisscrossing at intervals for the back. The skirt was soft and full and fell to the middle of her calf. The ties of thonged sandals were wrapped around her ankles. The ethnic print of her dress accented the honeyed tone of her skin, made the blond streaks in her hair more prominent, and with the darker eye makeup she had applied, enhanced her exotic features.
"All finished with your studying?" she inquired in a sultry voice.
When his blue eyes lifted to hers, she immediately saw the mockery in them. With his powerful thighs he raised himself to his full height. She had to tilt her chin up awkwardly to look him full in the face. And what she saw she didn't like one bit. He was all but laughing at her!
"The panties you washed out weren't quite dry by the time I needed the shower, so I hung them on the back of a chair in your room. Hope you don't mind."
Then he strolled out the back door, letting the screen slam shut behind him. The crash punctuated his statement like a vaudevillian drumbeat.
"Panties?" Celia asked in a high voice. "Did he say—"
"Yes, panties, panties," Shay all but shouted at her mother. She turned back to her job, her whole body quaking with fury.
She was the victim of Ian's derision during the entire meal. He never said anything aloud, but his taunting glances told her he had caught on to her machinations, that he saw right through her designs, and that rather than thinking she was a seductress, he thought she was a highly amusing idiot.
She hardly touched the food on her plate, though she did full justice to the bottle of burgundy that John had opened t
o accompany their steaks. By the time she stood up to help her mother clear the dining-room table, her head was buzzing pleasantly. When they emerged from the cleaned kitchen, John and Ian were engrossed in a chess game. Celia settled down to watch a romantic movie on TV. Shay stewed.
Bored, she wandered listlessly from room to room. Spotting her tennis racket propped against the banister, she decided to take it back to her car. The cool evening air should help her muzzy head.
She planned to leave this bad experience behind her early in the morning, even before Ian if possible, and return home. She would pack what she could tonight. Almost from the moment of her arrival she'd been made a fool of, and she couldn't wait to get back to her own world, where a few people even respected her opinion, thought she was pretty, and laughed with her instead of at her.
The car trunk lid popped up, and she was in the process of tossing the racket inside when she spotted her portfolio. She took it everywhere with her, like an appendage of her body. Inside the large, square leather folder was a history of her career as a nude model. She used the pictures of paintings, sculptures, and copies of photographs for reference when she interviewed with an artist for a job.
Now, almost crowing with glee, she hauled the heavy folder out of the trunk. Tucking the portfolio under her arm, she returned to the house.
She was alarmed to find her mother sobbing uncontrollably in John's arms. She dropped the portfolio onto the entry table. "Mom, what is it?"
"The movie," John said. Shay slumped with relief. "It ended sadly," he explained. "Come on, sweetheart, let's go upstairs." He kissed Celia on the temple and hugged her close as he negotiated the stairs for both of them. All the way to the top, he patted her back and repeated, "It was only a movie, darling."
Shay rolled her eyes heavenward, impatient with her mother's sentimentality over a silly love story. Love. Didn't her mother know that love like that was manufactured by writers and composers? It didn't exist in the real world. But the sight of Celia and John, both obviously in love, leaning into each other for support as they reached the top of the stairs, contradicted her jaded outlook. The possibility that true love did exist was a disturbing thought.
Ian was standing next to her, also looking at her parents. When they disappeared, he glanced down at Shay. His expression was infinitely tender, as if he were looking at a newborn baby.
"Your mother epitomizes everything feminine," he said. Left unsaid, Shay knew, was that her daughter didn't. Ian returned to the couch and picked up the sports magazine he'd been reading. Slouching against the cushions and propping one jean-clad leg on the knee of the other, he seemed instantly absorbed by the printed page.
More than a little miffed because he was so rudely ignoring her, Shay stalked to the table in the foyer, picked up her portfolio, and plopped determinedly into the opposite corner of the sofa Ian was sitting on.
The leather cover thumped against the back of the couch as she opened the large book. The pages rattled as she arranged and rearranged the pictures, trying to attract his attention. Under her breath, but loud enough for him to hear, she commented periodically on each picture she held in her hand.
Finally he sighed heavily and turned toward her. "I guess I'm supposed to ask what you're looking at."
Why she didn't slam the book shut at that moment and go upstairs to her room, she didn't know. Possibly because something inside her chanted that sugar attracts more flies than vinegar. In any event, she smiled winningly. "This is my portfolio. Would you like to look through it?"
He shrugged, a gesture she found thoroughly annoying. Was he doing her a big favor by looking at pictures of her nude? Apparently he thought so. "Sure," he said in a voice that intimated he didn't have anything better to do.
Since he didn't move, she was forced to scoot along the couch, dragging the unwieldy book with her. He took it upon his lap and opened it, scanning the first series of pictures.
"I was still in college when these pictures were taken. That's when I first started posing. Dad had died, and money was tight. I was taking art classes, and one day the instructor asked me if I'd consider posing for the advanced art classes, which were already into nudes."
"A male instructor, I presume."
Her fingers itched to slap the knowing grin off his mouth. "No, a female." Her voice was calm, hiding the anger that was nearly bursting from her.
She watched Ian's expressionless face as he slowly turned the pages of the book. His eyes moved over the pictures. He studied them with deep seriousness. But he could have been analyzing a brick wall for all the response he gave.
Wait until you get to the good stuff, she wanted to tell him. These first photographs were obviously unprofessional, taken by a friend so she could start her portfolio.
"This artist is famous," she said when he turned to a picture of a painting featuring only her back. Her hair had been swept up, leaving coy tendrils to trail down her neck. The smooth brush strokes had perfectly captured the texture of her skin. Shadowing had detailed the fragility of her spine and the impishness of the two dimples in the small of her back.
"Yes, I recognize his name," Ian said conversationally. "Didn't he do 'Morning Maid'?"
Shay looked at him in surprise. "Yes. I didn't think you'd know this artist."
"I don't know him, only his work."
He continued turning the pages, sometimes saying that he recognized a photographer or artist, commenting other times on the medium, never mentioning Shay, her pose, or her body.
"Which one is you?" he asked of a picture of a sculpture that had been commissioned by the Fine Arts League of a major midwestern city to grace the fountain outside their new concert hall. It featured the Muses.
"The one with the lyre."
The toga covered only one breast. "Nice lyre," he said, nodding sagely. She could have cracked his skull.
Her heart began to pound when he looked at the painting of her on the beach. It was a nighttime seascape. The water was calm. A moon hung suspended in the sky like a china plate. The woman was posed in profile. She was leaning back, propped up by straight arms behind her. Her head was thrown back so that her back arched and her hair swept her naked back. Her knees were raised. She looked as though she were offering up her breasts to the moon, which was kissing them with iridescent light.
"This one is incredible. Absolutely beautiful," Ian said. She thrilled to the low, husky, reverent tone of his voice. He touched the picture. Her heart all but stopped when his fingers grazed over the breasts so beautifully painted. "Lovely," Ian whispered.
"Do you like it?" she asked tremulously, her throat tight with emotion.
"Yes, yes," he said earnestly. "I admire an artist who can reflect light off water that way and make it look so real."
She strangled on an outraged cry. He was admiring the painting, the technique. All the appreciation glowing in his eyes was for the artist, not the model. She stared at him, bewildered and wounded, but he didn't even notice. He was calmly turning the pages of the book.
"Here's another interesting study," he commented.
Shay dropped her eyes from his face to the black and white photograph. She lay stretched out on her back, knees raised. One languid arm had been lifted. The back of her other hand rested on her forehead. The photographer had backlit her so that the black outline of her body was in stark contrast to the bright light behind it.
The profile of her face and chin were clearly defined before they blended into the silhouette of her throat. The shape of her breast, the impudence of its nipple, was outlined in startling detail. Her stomach dipped into a graceful hollow. Beyond that, the softly swelling mound of her femininity blended into the top of her thighs.
It was a beautiful photograph of the female anatomy in silhouette. The anonymity of it made it all the more beautiful. It belonged to all women.
"This photographer often uses that backlighting effect, doesn't he?" Ian commented.
Who cared? She wanted him to notice the wom
an in the photograph, not the damn lighting. "Yes."
"I thought so. I've seen some of his other works. Did he do this one, too?"
The last photograph in the folder was the most recent, also the most suggestive. It had been shot for a perfume ad for the European market. It was far too bold for American magazines and billboards. It, too, was in black and white, but this time she was fully lighted. The camera was above her.
Her hair was spread out behind her head on black velvet. Her face was turned away from the camera, her chin almost resting on her shoulder. The photograph had been cropped to show only one breast covered with a sheer white veil. Through it, her nipple was enticing, yet oddly vulnerable.
But it was her expression that captured the attention of the viewer. It was sublime. Her eyes were closed, her brows slightly puckered, her moist, shiny lips parted in a hint of a smile. Its message was clear: this woman was in the throes of passion fulfilled.
Actually at the time the photographer had said, "When we finish, Shay, I'll treat you to a hot fudge sundae. Think of it. Gooey chocolate, whipped cream, almonds, vanilla ice cream."
His camera had been clicking all the time he talked. She closed her eyes and licked her lips in anticipation since she hadn't eaten that day. When she heard his whispered, "My God," she knew she'd given him just the expression he'd been striving for all afternoon.
Ian studied the photograph for a long time. Shay's heart stood still. She had a wild vision of him slinging the picture, the book, and his conscience aside, grabbing her to him, and devouring her mouth with his. She saw her fingers plowing through his thick black hair to hold him fast, saw herself reclining at his insistence on the soft cushions of the couch, saw him stretching out above her, saw his hands urgently but gently peeling away her clothes. Blood pounded through her veins as her fantasy enlarged and she saw his hands exploring her, saw him raining hot kisses on her naked skin. She wet her lips.