Night Moves (60th Anniversary)

by Heather Graham

  “You won’t recognize what’s been done with it!” Barbara laughed. “Ten o’clock, with everything you’ll need for a full workout.”

  “I’ll be there,” Bryn promised. “Oh Barb? How many days’ work is it? And when do I take the PR photos?”

  “Probably three or four weeks on the video. It’s going to run about fifteen minutes, I think. But there will be a day or two off during that time for the photos. I’ll let you know when.”

  “Thanks again, Barb.”

  “Arggggghhhhhh!”

  Another ear-splitting scream sounded from outside.

  “Got to go, Barb. The natives are getting restless.”

  “Give them all a kiss and a hug for me!”

  “I will.”

  Bryn slammed down the receiver and raced outside again, anxiously scanning little faces.

  Adam was crying his eyes out. And soon as he saw her, he ran toward her as fast as his chubby little legs would carry him and buried his head in her lap.

  “What happened?” Bryn demanded of the older two.

  “I think a bug stung him!” Brian answered worriedly, coming over and stroking his little brother’s blond curls. “Adam—”

  Adam began to wail again. Bryn picked him up. “Come on, Adam, you have to tell me what happened.”

  He raised a red and swollen pinky to her, the tears still streaming from his huge green eyes just a shade darker than her own.

  “Bug!” he pronounced with a shudder. “It was a bad bug! Hurts, Aunt Bryn…”

  She whirled and hurried into the house, where she plopped Adam onto the counter between the kitchen and the dining room, and filled a small bowl with water and ice cubes. “Put your finger in the water, Adam, and it will feel better, I promise.”

  Adam, his tears drying as he tremulously took a deep breath, did as he was told. Bryn glanced over the counter to see that Keith and Brian, their eyes frightened as they stared at their brother, had followed her.

  She grimaced, then gave them an encouraging smile. “It’s not that bad, guys, really. I think it must have been a little honeybee.”

  Brian compressed his lips for a minute, then lowered his eyes. Bryn frowned as she watched him.

  “What’s the matter, Brian?”

  “He…he…”

  “He what, Brian?”

  Brian mouthed the words behind Adam’s back, his eyes stricken. “He’s not going to die, is he, Aunt Bryn?”

  “No!” Bryn exclaimed. “Of course not!” She lowered her own lashes and pretended to turn around to survey the contents of the refrigerator.

  It was strange that Brian had come up with the question. It seemed as if all three of the boys had adjusted so well in the past year and a half. They accepted her as their figure of authority, and they were touchingly ready to give her their trust and their love.

  But maybe it wasn’t so strange. Sue had died of a case of pneumonia that had defied medical science when Adam was just a year old; Jeff had followed her in the reckless accident less than two years later. No matter how well-adjusted the boys seemed, it was natural that they should worry.

  And natural that they should cling to her, fearing sometimes that she would leave them, too…

  She pulled out a pack of hot dogs and turned back to smile at the three; Adam with his pain-puckered and rosy cheeks; Brian and Keith, both pale with uncertainty.

  “Hey! Why the long faces? Adam, you just keep your finger in that water—”

  “Too cold!”

  “Okay, take it out for a minute, but then put it back in. Keith, Brian, go and take your baths. Then we’ll have hot dogs and ice cream and I’ll play your Muppet tape, and then everybody can go to bed. Tomorrow’s a school day.” And, she added silently, I’m going to have to finish up those last proofs and run out and buy some new tights. I don’t have a pair left without a dozen holes.

  Three hours later the boys were all bathed—including Adam—the hot dogs had been long-consumed and The Great Muppet Caper was drawing to a close.

  Brian was on her left side, Keith on her right. And Adam was perched on her lap.

  A painful shaft of memory suddenly ripped through Bryn, and she bit her lip so the boys wouldn’t notice the tears that had stung her eyes.

  She loved them so very much.

  And she felt so fiercely loyal to them. Partially because they were beautiful kids and partially because they had been Jeff’s. And no matter what happened, no matter how she had to struggle, no matter what she had to give up, she would never, never, let them down.

  Jeff had never let her down.

  She had been only sixteen when her mother and father had died in a freak mountain slide on the ski slopes. Sixteen, lost, bewildered, and stricken with grief. The only certainty in her life had been Jeff, and Jeff had battled for her. He fought distant aunts and uncles, and he had fought the courts.

  He had taught her to accept their parents’ deaths, and he had somehow gone to school, kept a job and created a home for the two of them, until she had been ready to leave for college. He had never failed her; he had been only three years older, but no girl, no job, no social event, had ever come before her.

  Even when he and Sue had married, she had never been made to feel like an outsider. She had waited at the hospital when each one of the boys had been born. And she had been the one to stay with Sue each time she had come home with a new baby.

  No, she would never let anyone stop her from loving the kids, or giving them the same loyalty and devotion that their natural parents would have given them.

  Not even a man like Joe.

  She had always considered herself to be confident and self-assured, but Joe had swept her off her feet. He had come to Tahoe for a vacation when the football season had ended, and from the first moment he had seen her, he had pursued her with a vengeance.

  Bryn had been amused at first, accepting the situation with the proverbial grain of salt. She didn’t consider herself particularly beautiful, but she was aware that there was something about her trim, wiry form and slightly tilted “cat eyes” that made her appealing to the opposite sex. She wasn’t sure if she liked the attraction that she held. It was often uncomfortable to know that the male of the species looked upon her and wondered not what she was like as a person, but what she would be like in bed. For a long time she laughed with good humor when Joe tried every compliment and trick in the book to get her to go out with him.

  But somewhere along the line, something had become real. She had convinced herself that even football heroes needed to be loved and to give love in return. And it had seemed that he had loved her.

  Things had started going badly with Sue’s death. Joe had resented the time she spent with her brother, although he tolerated it. Football season rolled around again, and Joe went back to work. In December he called to tell her that he had one night in which he could fly in.

  But she was due at Jeff’s that night. He was a pilot, and Bryn had assured him that she would stay with the children.

  Joe was livid. She asked him to come to Jeff’s house, but he didn’t want to play baby-sitter, he wanted to be alone. Bryn entreated him, trying to make him understand…

  He hung up on her.

  But the next week he was on the phone again, pretending that nothing had happened.

  She traveled with him for a while. But then the telegram had come from Tahoe. Jeff had been killed while fooling around with a hang glider.

  Joe had been comforting, but also aloof. He hadn’t come back with her to bury her brother, nor had he seen the faces of the three little boys who had lost both parents and were now lost and alone and frightened….

  Bryn couldn’t pay the mortgage on Jeff’s big house, so she moved the kids into the town house.

  When Joe returned the first time, things went fairly smoothly. She hired a baby-sitter, stayed at Joe’s hotel room until 2:00 A.M., then rushed home to be there if the kids woke up with nightmares.

  There had been a fight wh
en she wasn’t ready to go back out on the road. But again he called her in a few days, behaving as if nothing had happened.

  Except that something had happened. Bryn had watched his team on TV. And in the shots of the victorious players in the aftermath of their glory, she had seen Joe—and he hadn’t been alone. He had been in the company of a very young, very beautiful and very sleek redhead.

  Joe had sensed Bryn’s withdrawal during their phone conversation, and he had arrived in Tahoe the next Wednesday. Even with the children up and awaiting dinner, he had pursued her for answers. When she had accused him of infidelity, he had thundered in rage, “I’m a normal, vital, healthy male! You know how it is with football players. There are always women hanging around.”

  Bryn had looked anxiously about the kitchen, but the kids were all in the living room watching TV. She dropped her voice to a low whisper. “Oh, so you didn’t sleep with her?”

  “If I did, what difference would it make? She meant nothing to me. She was just there—and willing. Which you weren’t at the time. You were too busy playing little homemaker. And I warn you, Bryn, no man is going to play a waiting game while you want to be Mother Goose. Not when he has a Sleeping Beauty on his arm.”

  Somehow she had refrained from throwing a pan of boiling peas in his face. She had emptied them into a serving dish and headed past the counter for the dining-room table. “Dinner’s ready, Joe.” She could still remember her icy pronunciation of the words. “And call me Mother Goose if you like, but I don’t intend to discuss any of this in front of the kids. Understand?”

  He had nodded and taken his place at the table while she called the boys. But Brian must have heard part of the argument. He had been silently hostile when Joe had tried to talk to him. And then, when Joe had sworn silently beneath his breath, Brian had dipped his spoon into his peas and sent them flying across the table and into Joe’s face.

  It had been the last straw, Joe told her later. Sure, she had to be responsible for the kids. But she’d damn well better hire a housekeeper to stay with them. Then she could travel with him, and he wouldn’t have to fall for the groupies who awaited the players.

  He had proved himself unfaithful, and scarcely charitable. Knowing he had been with another woman had been painful, and then numbing. And it had hurt all over again when she answered him.

  “Forget it, Joe. Just forget the whole thing.”

  “What?”

  “I mean it. I don’t want to marry you. It would be a disaster from start to finish.”

  “You’re crazy! Do you know what you’re giving up?”

  “Yes, a man who feels it’s his right to cheat if ‘his woman’ isn’t available to fall into bed on his terms, at his times.”

  There had been more. A lot more. But in the end it had all been more of the same, and the engagement had definitely been over.

  “Aunt Bryn? There’s nothing but squiggly stuff on the TV.”

  Bryn started back to the present. “So there is, Brian. And there won’t be anything but squiggly stuff in your mind tomorrow if you don’t get some sleep! Bedtime, guys!”

  They grumbled but obeyed. Bryn checked Adam’s finger and saw that the swelling was down, and that only a small red area remained to show where the “boo-boo” was. And Adam was half asleep before he hit the pillow, so she knew he was well on his way to recovery.

  With the boys tucked in, Bryn threw on an old leotard, tights and leg warmers, and hurried back downstairs. She could get in some limbering exercises and catch up on the news at the same time.

  The trustworthy face of the weatherman came on the screen, announcing that the days would show a warming trend, but the nights would remain cool. Then the anchorman came on and began to talk about a young politician, Dirk Hammarfield, who was beginning his campaign for the U.S. senate in Lake Tahoe.

  Between leg stretches, Bryn watched with casual interest. The man had the energetic smile of a young Kennedy. He was of medium stature, with nice sandy hair and blue eyes.

  He’d probably get a lot of votes, she thought with a shrug. Maybe even her own.

  Bryn lay down on her stomach, but with her legs stretched, she suddenly froze.

  The story on the tube had shifted again.

  A pretty anchorwoman was talking; at the left-hand corner of the screen was a picture of a man.

  Lee Condor.

  Bryn didn’t hear what was being said; she was mesmerized by the picture. And by the gold-flecked eyes that were so arresting, even in a still shot.

  Perhaps, she tried to tell herself analytically, his eyes were so arresting because they were so very dark—except for the crystalline effect of the gold. Or perhaps because his face was so interesting. High, broad forehead. Dark, defined and arching brows. Straight—dead straight—nose. High cheekbones. Firm, ruggedly square jawline. And his mouth…even in a still, it looked mobile. As if he could smile easily, yet compress his lips into a line of determined intent…or anger.

  His hair was almost a pure jet black—a little long, but still, he looked more as if he could be a businessman than a rock star. Maybe not a businessman. A steelworker, more likely. There was something about him, even in a picture, that hinted at a lean and powerful physical prowess.

  Something, as Barbara had mentioned, that made him appear almost overwhelmingly male, all the more so because it was something of which he didn’t seem to be aware himself….

  The story suddenly went off the air, and a commercial for sandwich bags came on.

  Bryn abruptly relaxed her ridiculous pose and shook the tension out of her muscles. I’ve never even met him, she reminded herself.

  But even when she had finished with her exercises, showered, and fallen into bed for the night, she couldn’t stop thinking about him.

  And wondering what he would be like.

  And whether she would ever be able to control the disturbing fever that raced along her spine when she saw that gold fire in his dark eyes.

  It won’t matter, she assured herself. He’ll probably barely notice me, what with all the others….

  On that note, she slept.

  * * *

  But her hope was proved false on Tuesday, when she had been at the Fulton place for barely fifteen minutes.

  She had been chatting idly and nervously with Barbara as the two did some warm-up exercises when the friendly dance director pulled Barbara away. Moments later Barbara and the director came bearing down on her and excitedly dragged her away.

  “He says he thinks you’re perfect—” Barbara began.

  “It will mean a hike in your pay scale, of course,” the director cut in.

  “And very little extra work.”

  “Lee can explain it to you himself.”

  She suddenly found herself standing before him, and she hadn’t even seen him come in. Barbara was issuing an enthusiastic introduction, and he was vaguely smiling, barely attentive to her words.

  His eyes—they were a strange hazel, she realized, mahogany at the rim, yellow-green by the pupil—were on her. They swept over her from head to toe, lingering slowly, coming to rest on her own.

  “Bryn Keller? You’re the photographer, then, too. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  His hand was on hers. Rough—there were heavy calluses on his palms. Large—it enveloped her slender fingers.

  And hot…

  As if a burning energy poured through his system, making him as combustible as an active volcano, except that his power was deceptively calm, like the snowcapped peak of a mountain beneath a blue sky….

  The fire seemed to rip along her spine.

  She pulled her hand—jerked it, rather—from his, and stepped back a foot. “Yes, I’m Bryn Keller. If you’ll explain what you want, I’ll let you know if I’ll be capable or not.”

  Ice… There could have been no better description of her voice. She hadn’t really meant to be cold, but…

  She had been cold to the point of rudeness.

  The gold-tinged eyes n
arrowed, but barely perceptibly. His voice was a lazy drawl. “Oh, I’m quite sure that you’ll be capable, Miss Keller. Quite sure. Tony can explain the concept.”

  He turned and walked away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Lee Condor’s first glimpse of the girl was an intriguing one.

  When he arrived at the Fulton place, the door was open, and a flurry of activity was already in progress. No one noticed him as he walked in; the dancers—in all shapes and forms of workout clothing—were milling about, stretching and warming up. A gray-haired carpenter was finishing up at the top of the long, curving stairway, and Tony Asp, the dance director, and Gary Wright, the general director, were arguing midway up the stairs.

  Lee glanced quickly around the elegant entryway and oversized ballroom. Neither Perry nor Andrew—nor even Mick—seemed to have arrived yet, but it was still only ten to ten, and they had all spent the night at the casino, gotten a little nostalgic about being back in Tahoe, then toasted themselves until the dawn.

  Still, he thought with a knowing, inward smile, Perry and Andrew would arrive by ten. They had learned long ago that when they worked they were a team, and as a team, they were courteous to one another without fault. That meant not wasting the other guys’ time by not showing up.

  Lee ran his eyes casually over the dancers. Ten men, ten women. Most of them very young. Probably kids just out of high school, or maybe college, trying to get a break with a show in Tahoe. Well, if he was giving anyone a break, he was damned glad. Breaks were hard to come by.

  It was while he was idly staring about that he noticed her—or at least part of her. His first sight was of long, long legs. The backs of them, to be precise.

  The girl was bent over at the waist, first stretching her spine parallel with the ground, then dangling over until the top of her head almost touched the floor. Her tights were pink, and her leg warmers were black, as was her leotard. He really didn’t have much of an impression of her face, all he noticed at first sight were those legs, slim, yet sinewy. And he couldn’t help but notice her nicely rounded derriere. Not when it topped those long legs and faced him so pointedly…