by Nora Roberts
She should have been able to shrug it off, to nip it before whatever was beginning to grow would blossom. It wasn’t as easy as it should have been to dredge up the cool smile and the careless refusal. She looked at him, really looked at him, and could think of only one thing to say.
“Why?”
His lips curved. She watched the smile move slowly over his face, the angles shifting, the shadows playing. “Damned if I know. But when you do come back, maybe we’ll both have an answer. Meanwhile, why don’t we get this one question out of the way?”
He leaned toward her. She’d told herself she didn’t want to be kissed. She wouldn’t like it. She wasn’t a demonstrative person, and for her a kiss wasn’t merely a touching of lips. Even though she’d grown up in a world where a kiss was nothing more than a handshake—and often less binding—to her it was a personal thing that meant affection, trust, warmth.
She’d told herself she wouldn’t be kissed. But that had been before the moonlight and the bird’s song. That had been before he’d touched her.
Her eyes were wary. He saw that even as he brushed his lips lightly over hers. He’d meant it to be light, casual, hardly more than a peace offering. She was so cool and lovely, and so firmly on guard, that he’d been unable to resist.
An easy kiss. A friendly kiss. That was where he’d meant to begin and end it. That was before he’d tasted her.
He drew back, not quite sure of his footing. He hadn’t been prepared for whatever had rushed into him, not for the punch of it. With the water lapping beside them, he stared down at her. Moonlight was on her face, and he touched her cheek where the light played. She didn’t move. He couldn’t know that her own stunned reaction had left her rooted to the spot.
He touched her again, drawing his fingers back through her hair until they gripped it. Still she didn’t move. But when his lips came to hers again, hard, hungry, she met passion with passion.
She’d never wanted it to be like this. Desire raced through her, pushing her to keep pace with it. His mouth ran along her jaw, across her face, making her shiver with pleasure, but she twisted until their lips joined again.
A craving she’d never known she had . . . a dream she’d never allowed into her waking hours . . . that was what he was. Wherever his hands touched, they lingered, as if he couldn’t get enough. Lost in the first wave of pleasure, she pressed against him.
No, he couldn’t get enough. He pulled her head back and deepened the kiss. She tasted like the night, dark, haunted. The thin silk under her jacket teased and shifted until he had to force back the urge to tear it away. He wanted her, all of her. There, in the tall, damp grass, he wanted to discover all her secrets and make them his own.
She was breathless when they drew apart. That frightened her. Caution and control had been hard-learned lessons, and she always, without exception, applied them to all the areas of her life. She’d lost them both in the flash of an instant, in the brush of his lips.
She had to remember what he was: an artist, both in his craft and with his women. More, she had to remember what she was. There was no room in her life for reckless passion in the moonlight.
He reached for her again, just to trace his knuckles along her cheek. Because even that affected her, she moved aside.
“This isn’t the answer for either of us.” She didn’t like hearing the strain in her own voice, or the lingering huskiness he’d caused.
“It was a lot more than I bargained for,” he admitted. The defenses were going up again. He took her hand before she could withdraw behind them completely. “I felt something the first time I saw you. Now I begin to see why.”
“Lust at first sight?”
“Damn it, Johanna.”
She’d hated herself the moment she’d said it, but she couldn’t back down. If she backed down, she’d give in. “Let’s let it go, Sam. I’ll be honest and say that was more than nice, but I’m just not interested in the sequel.”
Anger stirred. He knew his own temper well enough to take things slow. He’d never decked a woman. Yet. “What are you interested in?”
She recognized barely restrained fury when she heard it. It was almost a relief. If he’d been kind, if he’d been the least bit persuasive, she would have crumbled. “My job.” She tried for a smile and almost managed it. “That’s really enough complications for me.”
“Lady, anybody who can kiss like that is just asking for complications.”
She hadn’t known she could kiss like that. She certainly hadn’t known she’d wanted to. And what was even more unnerving was that she wanted to kiss him again. “I suppose that’s a compliment. Shall we just say it was an interesting evening and leave it at that?”
“No.”
“That’s the best I can do.”
He touched her hair again. It wasn’t a testing gesture this time, it was a possessive one. “Okay. You’ll learn as you go along.”
She couldn’t pretend to be amused, because he was frightening her. It wasn’t a fear that he would drag her to the ground and finish what they’d both started, but it was a fear that he would prove to be stronger-willed and much more determined than she.
Stay out of his way, her mind warned her. And get started on it now.
“It was much too nice an evening to end it with an argument. I appreciate the meal and the walk. Now it’s getting late, and since it’s a long drive, we should be going.”
“All right.” He was much too annoyed to fight with her. Better, he thought, that he do exactly as she asked, then reevaluate the situation. Turning homeward, he reached out to guide her so that she wouldn’t stumble. When she jerked at his touch, he smiled again, and most of his annoyance left him.
“The longest trips are often the most eventful, don’t you think?”
She thought it best to leave that question unanswered.
4
“Just how many cases of Diet Zing do we have?” Johanna waited for Bethany to run down her list.
“Considering what the crew pinched, about a hundred and fifty cases. We’re square on the porto-vacs and the gift certificates and, of course, the encyclopedias.” Bethany turned over the list of parting gifts. Though she thought it odd that Johanna was staring out the window rather than checking off her own list, she didn’t comment. “About the home viewers’ contest,” Bethany began.
“Hmmm?”
“The home viewers’ contest?”
“Oh.” Johanna swore at herself, then pulled her gaze away from the window and her mind away from Sam Weaver. Daydreaming was always a waste of time, but it was a sin during office hours. “I want to get that nailed down this morning.” She unlocked the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a file. “I have several potential questions. Research put in a lot of extra time on it last week. The idea is to have John Jay announce a different one every day, somewhere during the program.” She glanced down the list again to satisfy herself. “I don’t want him to do it at the same time every day, particularly not at the beginning. If we’re going to draw people in, I want them to watch all day, all week. Is the deal on the car set?”
“Almost. We’re going with the American product and tying it in with the drawing the week of the Fourth of July.”
“Fine, but I want two.”
“Two what?”
“Two cars, Beth. Watch Trivia Alert and win.” She smiled a bit and tapped the end of her pencil on the desk. “Two luxury cars. One should be a convertible. People in Omaha with two kids don’t usually buy convertibles. Let’s make it a red one, at least for the ads. We’ll have the full-sized car in white and John Jay in a blue suit.”
“Hit them over the head with patriotism?”
“Something like that. See if we can bring the total value up to fifty thousand.”
“Sure.” Bethany blew her bangs away from her eyes. “I’ll use charm. And if that doesn’t work I’ll use Mongo the enforcer.”
“Use the ratings,” Johanna suggested. “I want a big ad in the TV Guid
e and the Sunday supplements. Black and white for the guide, color for the supplements.” She waited while Bethany made her notes. “The ten-second spot at ten is already set. We’ll tape it as soon as the cars are delivered. We have to pick five questions from the list.” She handed Bethany a copy. “And the list doesn’t go out of this office.”
Bethany skimmed down. “Where did Betty meet the leader of the pack?” Lips pursed, she glanced up. “Betty who?”
“Brush up on your girl groups. Early-sixties rock and roll.”
Bethany merely made a face. “These are pretty tough.”
That was exactly what she’d wanted to hear. “They’re worth fifty thousand.”
Giving a quiet murmur of agreement, she checked another question. “Johanna, how could anyone know how many witches were burned at the stake in Salem?”
“None.” Sitting back, Johanna ran the pencil through her fingers. “They were hanged.”
“Oh. Well, so far I’m batting a thousand.” When Johanna’s phone rang, Bethany took another hard look at the questions.
“Mr. Weaver’s on the line, Ms. Patterson.”
Johanna opened her mouth and was surprised when nothing came out.
“Ms. Patterson?”
“What? Oh, tell Mr. Weaver I’m in a meeting.”
When she hung up, Beth glanced over. “I wouldn’t have minded waiting.”
“I doubt he’s calling to discuss the show.” Telling herself to dismiss it, Johanna picked up her list and made her eyes focus. “What do you think about number six?”
“I don’t know that answer, either. Johanna . . .” Outgoing and candid herself, Bethany nonetheless understood and respected her boss’s restraint. “Did everything go okay the other night?”
It would have been foolish to pretend to misunderstand. “It went fine. Very pleasant.” Johanna dug into her pocket for a roll of antacids. “I’m leaning toward numbers one, four, six, nine and thirteen.”
Beth looked at each one, decided she might have an inkling about question thirteen, then nodded. “Let’s go for them.” She handed the list back so that Johanna could lock them up. “Could we pretend we’re out of the office, maybe at home with our feet up and a nice bottle of wine already half-gone?”
Johanna turned the key and pocketed it. “Do you have a problem, Beth?”
“No, but I’d swear you did.”
“I’m fine.” Johanna began to stack and straighten papers on her desk. “We had a friendly dinner, some pleasant conversation, and that was that. I have no idea why Sam’s calling me at the office, but I don’t have time to chat with him.”
“I didn’t mention Sam,” Bethany pointed out. “You did. I only mentioned a problem.” She smiled sympathetically. “I get the feeling they’re the same thing.”
Johanna rose and, with her hands in the deep pockets of her skirt, walked to the window. “He just can’t get it through his head that I’m not interested.”
“Are you? Not interested, I mean,” Bethany supplied when Johanna turned her head.
“I don’t want to be interested. It’s the same thing.”
“No. If you weren’t interested you’d be able to smile, maybe pat him on the head and say thanks but no thanks. Not wanting to be interested means you are and you get around it by avoiding phone calls and making excuses.”
Johanna pushed a thumb into the ivy geranium hanging in a basket at her window. The soil was moist. She’d watered it herself that morning. “How did you get to be an expert?”
“Unfortunately, most of it comes from observation rather than execution. He seems like a nice guy, Johanna.”
“Maybe, but I don’t have room for men right now, and less than none for actors.”
“That’s a hard line.”
“It’s a hard town.”
Bethany wasn’t willing to buy that. True, she’d only lived in L.A. for three years, but it still fascinated her. To her it remained the town where dreams could be chased and caught. “I hope you’re not going to break my heart and tell me he’s a jerk.”
“No.” With a reluctant smile, Johanna turned again. “No, he’s not a jerk. Actually, you’re right, he’s a very nice guy, charming, easy to talk to—” She caught herself. “For an actor.”
“He makes my insides tingle,” Bethany confessed, unashamed and artless.
Mine, too, Johanna thought. Which was precisely why she wasn’t going to see him again. “You’re supposed to be concentrating on your screenwriter,” she said briskly, then stopped when she saw Beth’s expression. “Trouble?”
“He dumped me.” She shrugged her shoulders in an unconcerned gesture. Johanna only had to look at Beth’s eyes to see how much she was hurting. “It’s no big deal, really. We weren’t serious.”
Maybe he wasn’t, Johanna thought with a mixture of sympathy and resignation. “I’m sorry. Everyone has spats, Beth.”
Bethany understood that, had even expected it. She hadn’t expected deceit. “We went a little beyond that. It’s better this way, really it is. I thought he was interested in me, you know, but when I found out he was more interested in my position—” She caught herself, swore silently, then smiled. “Doesn’t matter. He was just one of the many toads you have to go through to find the prince.”
“What about your position?” It never took Johanna long to put two and two together. Screenwriter, assistant producer. Toss in ambition and it added up perfectly. “Did he want you to hawk a script?”
Uncomfortable, Bethany shifted. “Not exactly.”
“Spit it out, Beth.”
“All right. He had the idea that I could influence you to influence your father to produce his screenplay. When I told him it wouldn’t work, he got mad, then I got mad, and one thing led to another.” She didn’t add that it had been ugly. She didn’t have to.
“I see.” Why were there so many creeps in this world? Johanna wondered. So many users. “I am sorry, Beth.”
“Bruises fade,” Beth said easily, though she was aware hers would last a long time. “Besides, I’ve got the satisfaction of hoping he sells nothing but commercial jingles for the next ten or twenty years.”
“Do yourself a favor,” Johanna advised her. “Fall in love with an insurance salesman.” She glanced toward the door as her secretary popped a head in.
“Telegram, Ms. Patterson.”
With a murmured thank-you, Johanna took it. Stupid, she told herself as her fingers tensed on the paper. It had been almost twenty-five years since she’d gotten that brief and heartbreaking telegram from her mother. She hadn’t even been old enough to read it herself. Shoving back the memory, she tore the envelope open.
I can be as stubborn as you. Sam.
Johanna scowled at the single line, read it twice, then crumpled it into a ball. But instead of tossing it in the waste-basket, she shoved it into her pocket.
“Bad news?” Bethany asked.
“A weak threat,” Johanna said, picking up her remote. “The show’s starting.”
***
The damn woman was making him crazy. Sam groomed the mare, who’d been bred only hours before to his prize stud. She was still skittish and prone to nip. High-strung, pedigreed and temperamental, she reminded Sam of Johanna. That made him smile, if a bit grimly. He didn’t think Johanna would appreciate being compared to a horse, not even a purebred.
She hadn’t returned one of his calls. Miss Patterson is unavailable. Miss Patterson is in a meeting.
Miss Patterson is avoiding you like the plague.
He was beginning to feel like a gawky teenager with a crush on the class princess. More than once he’d told himself to write her off, to find some less complicated woman to spend an evening with.
The mare turned her head and took aim at his shoulder. Sam merely shifted out of range and continued to stroke and soothe. He didn’t want to spend the evening with a less complicated woman. He wanted to spend it with Johanna. Just a test, he told himself, to see if whatever had happened by the po
nd would happen again. And if it did, what the hell was he going to do about it?
He was better off not seeing her again. A man had a lot more freedom when he cluttered up his life with many women than when he found himself concentrating on only one. He wasn’t trying to concentrate on her, he reminded himself. He just couldn’t get her out of his head.
What secrets did she have tucked away inside her? He had to find out.
When she’d kissed him . . . there had been no secrets there. She’d been open, passionate and as honest as a man could hope for. It hadn’t been ordinary. He knew what it was to kiss a woman for