Michelle nodded her head quickly, all the while trying to brush her tears away with her shaking hands. “Oh, yes, that’s a good idea. Thank you. I’ll do it right away.”
Steve watched her race back up the stairs, two steps at a time. He had a feeling she was so desperate she would’ve said the same thing if he’d told her to drag a raw fish tied to a rope through the building.
The basement was dark and chilly, a long dark tunnel of locked doors. There was a light shining halfway down the hall and Steve briskly headed for it. He pushed open the partially closed door to find the laundry room. Inside were four washers and four dryers, a folding chair and a rickety car table. But no cat. Steve sighed, frustrated.
Michelle joined him. “I put the cat box out. Is Burton down here?”
Steve heard the note of hope in her voice. He hated to have to dash it. “No, he’s not.” Seeing the disappointment darken her vivid blue eyes hurt. “But I’m positive we’ll have him soon, Michelle. The little devil is bound to be getting bored with his adventure by now.”
His attempt to cheer her fell flat. “What if he can’t come home?” Michelle whispered. “What if he’s gone and I’ll never see him again?”
“Michelle, that’s not going to happen,” Steve said sternly. “You have to stop thinking negatively and focus on—” “It’s happened before,” she broke in tearfully, “to my other cat, my first cat, Fluffy. He was an albino cat, all white with pink eyes, and I had him for fourteen years. One morning—a few days after my high school graduation—I let him out, just like I always did. It was his daily routine, he’d spend about fifteen minutes outside and then want to come back inside. But when I went to the door to let him in, he wasn’t there.”
She gulped back a sob. “He wasn’t anywhere. I looked all over for him. Every kid on the block helped me search the entire neighborhood all day long, but we never found him. He’d just vanished.”
“Old cats do that when they’re about to die,” Steve said quietly. “They’ll leave home and find a place to hide and—”
“That’s what the vet told me. But it didn’t help. It hurt so much to lose Fluffy that way. To have him just disappear and never see him again. I wondered if he was lost or scared or in pain—” Her voice broke.
“Michelle, come here, honey.” Steve took her into his arms. He did not like sad stories and assiduously avoided them. How could one have a good time if one was encumbered by sadness? But at that moment he couldn’t have walked away from Michelle any more than he could have abandoned one of his sisters when they were heartbroken or weeping. Except the feelings he had for Michelle as he held her close to him were decidedly not sisterly. His body was already beginning to react to her nearness.
Uh-oh! Every self-preservatory bachelor instinct he possessed went on red alert. It was definitely time to detach himself, to make a joke and break away. But he didn’t.
“When I got Burton, I promised myself that I’d always keep him inside where he would be safe and I’d always know where he was,” Michelle said softly, sadly, leaning into Steve, savoring the warmth and comfort he offered. “My heart broke every time I thought of Fluffy going off to die alone Outside. He was such a good and faithful friend for fourteen years. Fluff went everywhere with me, when I visited my dad, no matter where he was stationed. As long as I had my cat, I felt I belonged to someone and that there was someone who really needed me around to—”
“Michelle, don’t,” Steve interrupted huskily. He was feeling her pain and it was unbearable.
He sought immediately to remedy it, with action. “We’re going to find Burton,” he said decisively, taking Michelle by the hand and half dragging her after him as he strode through the basement. “I’ll comb the outside while you go door to door to every apartment in the building. There’s a chance someone saw him, figured he was lost and took him in. But let’s check your place first.”
“He won’t be there, I know it,” Michelle murmured, squeezing back another round of tears.
“Come on now, it’s time to start thinking positively.” Steve pulled her to his side and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “We’re going to find your cat and we’re going to find him very soon.”
His confidence was bolstering, Michelle realized with some surprise. Maybe all wasn’t lost, maybe there was some hope, after all.
They rounded the stairwell and entered the second floor. “Well, well, look who’s home.” Steve cupped Michelle’s nape with his hand and turned her head toward the end of the hall. A Siamese cat was sitting in the box outside the door to her apartment.
“Burton!” Michelle took off at breakneck speed, rushing down the hall to scoop up the cat in her arms. “He’s home!” she exclaimed, her face alight with joy. Burton meowed and began to purr loudly as she cuddled him close.
“I told you he’d soon tire of his great adventure and decide that there’s no place like home,” said Steve. His seeming nonchalance belied the genuine pleasure sweeping through him.
“Oh, Steve, thanks to you, Burton was able to find his way back!” Michelle exclaimed breathlessly. She gazed up at Steve with glowing eyes, her face radiant. “Your idea to put his cat box out by the door was—well, it was brilliant!”
“Like my driving, hmm?" He smiled, remembering she’d used the same superlative the night of the blizzard.
“Thank you so much for all your help, Steve!”
“Glad I could help.” He particularly liked the way she was looking at him, her blue eyes shining with admiration and warmth, as if he were her hero.
Michelle carried the cat inside the apartment and Steve followed, gallantly bringing the cat box. He was careful to close the door tightly behind him. “We don’t want another breakout,” he said dryly. “Burton’s used up his one allotted escape.”
Burton wriggled in Michelle’s arms, meowing a demand to be put down. Once on the ground, he circled the room in an excited dash, then ran toward the bedroom.
Steve chuckled. “Guess he’s glad to be back.”
Impulsively, Michelle gave him a quick hug. “Steve, I just can’t thank you enough!”
He caught her arms as she was drawing away. “I know a way you could thank me.”
Michelle immediately stiffened. “If you’re going to suggest that I go to bed with you as a way to—”
“I wasn’t,” Steve interjected smoothly. “But I find it interesting that you suggested it.”
“I most certainly did not! ” She tried to pull away, but he used his superior strength to draw her closer.
“Don’t get all riled up.” Steve laughed huskily. “What I was about to suggest was going to New York with me this weekend. I have tickets for Friday’s Rangers game and a friend has offered me two tickets for Saturday night to that new musical from London that’s recently opened on Broadway. Will you come with me?”
Michelle met his eyes. “Yes.”
“You will?” Steve was caught off guard. He’d been so sure she would refuse, he had been mentally preparing a list of reasons why she should accept his invitation. “Because you feel you owe me for the cat?” he asked uncertainly.
Michelle smiled. “Not really. I love New York. I can do some shopping there on Saturday afternoon and I also happen to like hockey games and musicals. It sounds like a great weekend. I’ll be staying with my sister, of course.”
He stared at her mutely.
“My stepsister Ashlinn lives in New York City. She’s an editor for a travel magazine,” Michelle explained. “I’m welcome to stay with her any time I want. I’ll call and tell her to expect me this weekend.”
“I see.” She had neatly outmaneuvered him, Steve conceded.
“Does your invitation for the game and the show still stand?” she asked sweetly. “Or was it contingent upon sharing a room with you?”
“Of course my invitation still stands. You seem absolutely obsessed with the idea that I’m obsessed with getting you into bed.” Nice save, Steve congratulated himself. He observ
ed the flush pinking Michelle’s cheeks with satisfaction. “I’ll call you tomorrow night with more details, but we should try to leave Harrisburg by two o’clock Friday afternoon to make the game. Will you be able to get away then?” Leaving the office a few hours early was unheard of for her, though other staffers did so, citing appointments, vacation plans and assorted other reasons. “Yes,” she said confidently.
And she did. Brendan O’Neal kidded her about having a hot date. Claire expressed an interest but didn’t press it when Michelle volunteered no information, and Leigh wasn’t there because she’d left at noon for a weekend trip.
Steve picked up Michelle at two o’clock and stowed her bag and Burton, secure in his cat carrier and other cat gear in the car.
“I always take—” she began to explain.
“I know, I know. Wither thou goest, so goest your cat,” Steve paraphrased. He wondered how they were going to get the cat into the hotel. Not for a moment did he believe that Michelle would be spending the weekend at her stepsister’s place. Perhaps if he offered the bellhop a very generous tip, they could smuggle the cat into their room.
Traffic was light on the turnpike. “I’m glad we got an early start,” Steve remarked. “At this rate, we should avoid the rush-hour snarl around Philadelphia. Did you have any problem leaving the office early?”
Michelle shook her head. “I had a light schedule today. The committee for hazardous waste elimination met in the morning and then—”
“Any decisions on the locations of the sites?”
“Not exactly. But they did decide where the sites wouldn’t be—in gamelands or forest preserves.”
“And I’m relatively certain that there will be no hazardous waste elimination center in Ed Dineen’s district,” Steve drawled.
“Well, no.”
“But I’d lay odds that a site in Joe McClusky’s district is definitely being considered.”
Michelle glanced at him in surprise. ‘ ‘There does happen to be an area in that district that would comply with all regulations,” she said slowly.
“And what better way to stick it to your rival than to dump hazardous wastes in his district, hmm?” Steve shrugged. “I’m aware of the rivalry between Dineen and McClusky, Michelle.”
“You’re very cynical,” Michelle said disapprovingly. “McClusky’s district isn’t the only site being seriously considered.”
Steve merely shrugged again, a silent gesture of his disbelief.
“No, really,” cried Michelle. She wanted to make him understand that Ed Dineen was no petty politician, striking his opponents with vengeful paybacks. To that end, she named several other sites being seriously considered as hazardous waste sites, all of them in politically neutral areas.
Smiling, Steve changed the subject before she had a chance to realize that she’d been indiscreet.
They spent the rest of the trip listening to tapes and talking desultorily about any number of subjects, and in what seemed a remarkably short time, they were on the outskirts of New York City.
Six
Michelle’s stepsister Ashlinn lived in New York’s upper west side in an old, somewhat seedy apartment building twelve stories high. Her apartment was on the eleventh floor and had four locks on the door.
“At least the elevator in this building works,” Steve remarked as he and Michelle walked hand in hand along the dilapidated corridor toward Ashlinn’s apartment. “I’d hate to have to trek up eleven flights of stairs.”
His eyes flicked from the peeling paint on the walls to the almost threadbare carpet on the floor. “Are you sure you want to stay in this dump tonight? My room at the Plaza has a view of Central Park, a Jacuzzi and a bottle of champagne cooling on ice. Not to mention room service for midnight snacks and breakfast in bed.”
Michelle stopped in front of Ashlinn’s door. “Steve, I thought that you had—”
“—Given up trying to talk you into staying with me?” he interrupted ingenuously. “Now where would you get a ri-
diculous idea like that?” He reached for her, taking her slowly, smoothly, in his arms. “There are other things available tonight if you come with me, things you won’t find here.”
Michelle looked up into his eyes, which were hot and searching, a sharp contrast to his light, casual tone of voice. “Like what?” she asked, her voice faintly husky.
Steve slipped his hands beneath her jacket and loose-fitting sweater. “This,” he murmured softly. He nuzzled her neck, tasting, caressing the sensitive skin there while his busy hands skimmed upward to unfasten the clasp of her bra with an expertise born of much practice.
“And this,” he said raspily, covering her bare breasts with his hands. His lips brushed her mouth lightly, teasingly. “There’s a big, soft bed in that room.” His thumbs lingered over her tight, tingling nipples. He nipped at her mouth gently. “And I’ll be in that bed, Michelle. I want you there with me.”
Michelle heard a quiet moan echo in the hall and realized that it had come from her. A heated knot in her stomach uncoiled, and warmth and moisture welled between her legs. And it was her arms that locked around his neck, her mouth hungrily seeking the depth and pressure of his, her tongue sliding between his lips.
Steve took over, kissing her with devastating thoroughness, using his practiced technique to arouse her. But there was nothing practiced about Michelle’s wholehearted emotional response. She clung to him, kissing him with a breathless passion that sent him spinning out of his usual calculating, measured control.
Their kiss deepened and he was lost in the taste of her, drowning in the heady pleasure they shared. Heedless of their surroundings, he slid his hands to her bottom, squeezing and stroking her supple curves as he lifted her against his hard masculine heat.
It was the irritatingly loud, clanking sounds of the ancient elevator down the hall that finally intruded and broke the hot sensual spell enveloping them. Steve raised his head and gazed down at Michelle. She looked aroused and bemused, her blue eyes smoky and glazed with passion, her breasts rising and falling heavily with each breath she took. He couldn’t resist tracing the outline of her lips, which were moist and red and slightly swollen from their kisses. Steve couldn’t hold back his deep groan of arousal, of hunger and need.
“Michelle,” he said hoarsely. “Baby, I—”
“I have to go in,” she said quickly, pressing the doorbell, which sounded a melodious chime within. “Ashlinn is waiting for me.”
He knew. He’d heard the discussion before he and Michelle left for the hockey game. Ashlinn didn’t have extra keys for all four locks on her door, therefore she would have to wait up to let Michelle in. Steve hadn’t challenged the arrangement at the time. He’d been absolutely certain that Michelle would be returning to the hotel with him.
She had been equally certain that she wouldn’t.
The door was flung open and Michelle quickly moved away from him to say hello to her stepsister.
Steve had great difficulty summoning his customary charming grin of greeting. It didn’t matter that the darkhaired, dark-eyed, sultry Ashlinn was stunningly sexy. His mind and his senses were too full of Michelle to notice any other woman. Ashlinn was a blur, an obstacle, and he wished she would disappear. He wanted to be alone with Michelle.
“Michelle, your cat drove me crazy all evening,” Ashlinn announced. “He lounged on the manuscripts I was trying to read and attacked my pencil every time I tried to write. It would’ve been easier to work with a herd of elephants in the room than that one small cat.”
“I’d better go,” Steve interjected impatiently. His body felt as if it might explode—or implode. Whatever, he needed a cold shower, and soon. “I’ll call you tomorrow, Michelle.”
Michelle nodded her head, carefully not meeting his eyes.
“Do you have the telephone number here?” Ashlinn asked officiously.
Steve frowned irritably. Did the woman think he was a complete idiot? “Yes, Michelle gave it to me,” he repli
ed in the taut, long-suffering tone he used when one of his sisters asked him a particularly stupid question.
“Michelle and I plan to go shopping tomorrow, so call before ten or after four,” Ashlinn ordered.
“I thought we were spending the day together, Michelle,” Steve said, scowling. He’d counted on it. And after a full day of being treated to his charming company and irresistible sex appeal, she would be eager to crawl into bed with him.
“You’re welcome to come shopping with Ashlinn and me,” Michelle quickly assured him.
“Shopping?" Steve was aghast. “I hate shopping.” Years of being dragged as a child from store to store by his mother and grandmother, of being forced to take his younger sisters to the mall after he’d received his coveted driver’s license had taken its toll on him. Shopping—particularly shopping with women—was something to be avoided at all costs.
“You two go shopping, I’ll find something else to do,” he said, heaving a martyred sigh. “Good night.”
“Your friend Steve didn’t seem very happy,” Ashlinn remarked with a laugh as she and Michelle went inside. “Was it the prospect of our shopping trip or did his team lose tonight?”
“It was the shopping because the Rangers won.” Michelle sank down into a wide, comfortable armchair. Her face was flushed and her whole body was humming with unsated sexual tension. “The game was terrific. We really had a good time.” She stared into space, her blue eyes thoughtful. “Even though Steve and I seem to fight a lot we do have a lot of fun together.”
“It’s my guess that smooth, sexy Steve didn’t think he would have to bring you back here tonight,” Ashlinn said gleefully. “He thought he could sweet talk you into going to his hotel room with him. I’m sure it came as a profound shock to find himself spending the night alone.”
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