by Carole Buck
The second reason she shied away from explaining why her marriage had ended was that she was no longer sure she knew. What she once would have cited as incontrovertible fact—that Chris had been the unmitigated wronger and she the blameless wrongee—now seemed to her to be open to at least some degree of argument.
Which wasn’t to say that she regretted her divorce. She didn’t. Not... really. Given the life she’d built for herself in the wake of it, how could she? The woman she was today was pretty much the one she’d aspired to be before the sweltering summer night Christopher Dodson Banks walked into Falco’s Pizzeria and turned her world upside down.
Would she have become this woman if she’d stayed married? A decade ago, Lucia Annette Falco would have said absolutely not. But lately, she’d begun to wonder.
A decade ago, she also would have maintained that her marriage had been unsalvageable. She’d begun to wonder about the validity of that assessment with increasing frequency in recent times, too.
“There’s always a lot of end-of-the-year business to be taken care of, Tiff,” Lucy said, dropping her gaze and making a show of shuffling through the files on the top of her antique burled-cherry desk. “I have a huge backlog of paperwork to wade through.”
“If there’s so much to be done, why did you give everyone the rest of the week off?” the older woman asked challengingly, fluffing her frothy mane of silvery white curls with an extravagantly beringed hand.
“Because I felt like it.”
This deliberately outrageous explanation stopped Tiffany for a moment. But only a moment. She rose from the tall wingback chair in which she’d been ensconced. “Lucia Annette Falco—”
“I appreciate your concern,” Lucy told her, meaning it. “But not having plans to party hearty on New Year’s Eve doesn’t mean I’m socially deprived. I’m simply not into swilling champagne and kissing strangers at the stroke of midnight.”
Tiffany arched a well-plucked brow and pursed her plum-glossed lips. Then, with a sassiness that belied her sixty-plus years, she retorted, “Don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it.”
Lucy had to laugh.
Clearly sensing an opening, the older woman reverted to her initial theme. It was a characteristic response. For all her flamboyant fluttering, Tiffany was an expert at manipulating other people for what she considered to be their own good. She was also as tenacious as a lockjawed terrier when she got her teeth into something. It was little wonder that she was one of Gulliver’s Travels’ most successful agents.
“You don’t have to stay out all night,” she coaxed. “But what’d be the harm in dashing home and putting on something extra-pretty, then meeting Hastings and me for a teensy-weensy libation at the Buckhead Ritz?”
“Oh, I’m sure Hastings would just love to have me horn in on your big date,” Lucy riposted. Hastings Chatwell Lee IV, as she and everyone else at the agency was aware, was Tiffany’s latest beau.
“He’d rather have me all to himself, of course.” The response was smug. Tiffany Tarrington Toulouse was a woman who was gloriously sure of the irresistibility of her feminine charms. “But if it’d make me happy to have you come along...”
There was no need for her to finish the sentence. From what Lucy had observed, Hastings Chatwell Lee IV would lie down like a rug and let himself be stomped on by a herd of hobnail-booted hippos if he had an inkling that it would please his silver-haired sweetie pie.
“It’s a tempting offer, Tiff,” she acknowledged after a few seconds. “But I’m going to pass.”
A hint of steel entered Tiffany’s eyes. She opened her mouth, plainly intending to press her case. She was forestalled by the precipitous arrival of a gangly young man whose buzz-cut platinum hair and small silver nose ring were in striking contrast to his starched white shirt—complete with pocket protector—crisply ironed khaki pants and spit-polished penny loafers.
The young man’s name was Wayne Dweck, and he’d recently joined Gulliver’s Travels as a part-time office assistant. Wayne was passionately interested in computer technology and so-called alternative music. It was Lucy’s impression that he spent the bulk of his free time alternating between surfing the Internet and slam-dancing.
“‘Scuse me, Ms. Toulouse,” he said, a bit breathlessly. “But you’ve got a seriously expensive long-distance phone call. Some guy named Sergei, from St. Petersburg.”
“Sergei from St. Petersburg?” Lucy lifted her brows inquiringly.
“Sergei Illyanovich Gennady,” Tiffany elaborated with an airy gesture. “I met him last summer, on that singles cruise I took. You remember. The one to the Galapagos Islands. Such a nice man. It’s hard to believe he was a godless Communist for most of his life. He’s probably calling to wish me happy New Year.” She turned a beaming smile on Wayne and patted him on the cheek, her rings glinting. “Thank you, dear.”
The nostril-pierced part-timer turned beet red, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a Ping-Pong ball on a choppy sea. “N-no problem, Ms. Toulouse. My p-pleasure.”
Tiffany returned her crystalline gaze to Lucy. “You think about what I said,” she instructed firmly, then pivoted on her heel and walked away. There was a hint of Mae West in the sway of her hips.
“She is so... totally...cool,” Wayne declared in an ardently admiring tone, sagging briefly against the door frame.
“She’s totally something, all right,” Lucy wryly agreed.
“She should have her own home page on the Web.” The gawky office assistant ambled forward and plunked himself down in the chair Tiffany had vacated a short time before. “Do you think she’d mind if I started one? I could call it Travels with Tiffany, and I could post pictures from all the trips she’s taken. Maybe get her to write some commentary. I could link it to some of the other outstanding babe sites, too.”
Lucy bit the inside of her cheek, struggling to keep a straight face. “I think Tiffany would probably be Battered by the idea. Why don’t you talk to her about it first thing next weak?”
It was difficult to believe that Wayne could blush more vividly than he had a minute or so earlier, but he managed it.
“You mean, like, face-to-face?” he gasped, gripping the arms of the wingback chair. “On a ... reality ... basis?”
“Mmm-hmm ...”
There was an uncomfortable pause. After much squirming, Wayne finally said, “Maybe... Maybe I’ll E-mail her about it. I kind of have trouble keeping my head straight when she’s there in the, uh, flesh, you know? I get sort of warm and woozy. The first time I was introduced to her, it was right after I’d had lunch at that Mexican place over on Spring and I was scared I was going to blow burrito chunks in front of her. I’ve pretty much got that under control now, though. Not the warm and woozy part. The potential hurling.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“The thing is, I think Ms. Toulouse in one of those women who was born with megapheromones.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pheromones. Like, sex chemicals. Bugs secrete them, big-time.”
“Oh.”
“It has to do with smell, mostly. Human pheromones, that is. I mean, sometimes you sniff somebody, and wham. Instant attraction.” Wayne cocked his head, his brow furrowing. “Did that ever happen to you, Lucy?”
Her pulse stuttered. Memory assailed her, sending a ripple of heat coursing through her body.
The subtle appeal of expensive spice.
The more provocative allure of natural male musk.
Chris’s scent.
Oh, yes. Lucia Annette Falco knew what it was like to “sniff” a stranger and plunge headlong into love. Or lust. Or some irresistible blending of the two. And although it had been nearly ten years since—
“Lucy?”
She started, more than a little appalled at the waywardly erotic direction of her thoughts. She’d come to expect a certain amount of nostalgic weirdness from herself on New Year’s Eve. But this was ridiculous! It was even worse than the eager way she’d d
evoured that newspaper profile of Chris she happened to run across a few weeks back.
“I’m sorry, Wayne,” she said, shutting her mind to the memory of the distinguished-looking black-and-white photograph that had accompanied the laudatory article. “Yes. It happened to me. I once... sniffed...a man and was attracted to him. But it was a long, long time ago.”
“Well, I wasn’t trying to be nosy....” Wayne stopped, frowning. Then he started to snicker. “Nosy,” he repeated. “About whether you ever got turned on by smelling some guy.” The snickering became snorting laughter. “Heh-heh-heh. Nosy. I like that.”
Lucy didn’t, for a variety of reasons. She gave the young man a few seconds to recover from his self-induced amusement, then reclaimed control of the conversation. “Shifting to a more serious subject, Wayne,” she began, in her crispest executive voice. “What’s the status on the new software?”
The younger man blinked several times, clearly lost. “The new software?”
“That Mr. Gulliver ordered.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course.” Wayne grinned broadly, back in the loop. “It’s cool. Cutting-edge, but easy to upgrade. Mr. G. really knows his stuff. I was just finishing installing it when that Sergei guy called for Ms. Toulouse.”
“Good work.” Lucy was a firm believer in positive reinforcement.
“Thanks. I’m gonna wait a couple of weeks before I start programming the specialty functions. ‘Cause, like, I figure people need time to get used to the basic system before they can decide what kind of shortcuts they want.”
“That sounds sensible.”
“Just one thing.” Wayne’s expression became wheedling, underscoring his youth. “Are you sure you don’t want me to load the encryption system I showed you last week? I’ve been using it at my workstation since Christmas. It’s awesome, Lucy.”
“I’m sure it is.” So awesome, she didn’t have a due about how it worked or why the agency would want to utilize it. About the only thing she remembered from the enthusiastic demonstration Wayne had given her was the sequence of keystrokes that supposedly enabled him to send coded E-mail anywhere in the world.
“Well, then—”
“We’re not the Pentagon, Wayne.”
“Jeez, I hope not! Do you have any idea how easy it is to access most of the Defense Department’s data banks?”
Lucy stiffened, flashing on a scenario in which Gulliver’s Travels was invaded by federal agents and shut down as a hotbed of hacker activity.
“Oh, hey...” the young man forged on, apparently oblivious of the alarm his previous—and pray God, rhetorical—query had triggered. “Speaking of security and breaking into things. You know how we’ve been wondering what they’ve been storing in the vault next door? Well, a friend of a friend of a friend of mine knows this guy who’s related to somebody in the police department, and he says he heard—”
“Wayne!”
The source of this urgent exclamation was Jim Burns, another one of Gulliver’s Travels’ top agents. He was short, superenergized and given to wearing plaid shirts with polka-dot ties. His rather checkered résumé included stints as a short-order cook and a used-car salesman.
“Jimmy?” Lucy questioned, instantly concerned. The last time she’d seen her co-worker looking so distressed had been the day he discovered that the cruise package he’d put together as the grand prize for a local Halloween charity ball had landed the couple who’d won it in the middle of a modern-day pirate drama. The aftermath of the episode—the capture and prosecution of the members of a drug-smuggling operation—had been front-page news. Fortunately, Gulliver’s Travels had suffered no negative PR fallout. Not only that, the couple who had gotten caught up in the adventure had already booked another trip through the agency. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m being overrun by aliens from a parallel universe!”
She gawked. Aliens from a parallel universe?
“Did you try the death beam?” Wayne asked calmly, unfolding his lanky frame and getting to his feet.
“Nonfunctional.” Jimmy pulled out a handkerchief and blotted his perspiration-sheened brow. “Even worse, I forfeited my powers of transmogrification when I cut a deal with the Fungocians on level three.”
“You cut a deal with the Fungocians?” The office assistant was visibly startled. Even his nose ring seemed to quiver with disbelief. “Jeez, Jimmy. They’re the scum of the universe!”
“I thought I could double-cross them before they double-crossed me.”
“Never going to happen, dude.” Wayne glanced at Lucy. “‘Scuse me. I gotta go kick some alien butt.”
“Have fun,” she answered ironically.
Jimmy lingered in the doorway after the younger man exited. “Sorry about that, Lucy.”
She brushed the apology aside, not really upset at having had her conversation with Wayne interrupted. “Another computer game?” she asked knowingly.
“A Christmas gift from the kids.”
“Ah.”
The agent shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I was only fiddling with it because things have been really slow.”
“No need to explain, Jimmy.” And there wasn’t. Jim Burns had his share of eccentricities. But when it came down to the crunch, Lucy knew he could be counted on to deliver for the agency. If he wanted to spend his spare moments fighting aliens from a parallel universe, she had no objections. “I know how quiet it’s been. I’m about ready to tell everyone to pack it in till next year.”
“Give us a jump on celebrating the auld lang syne, eh?”
“Something like that.”
“Everybody’s really excited about having the rest of the week off, you know.”
“It’s no more than you deserve. The agency had a terrific fourth quarter. Mr. Gulliver is going to be very pleased.”
“Have you heard from him lately?”
“Not since I got that fax requesting all those honeymoon brochures.”
“He actually got hitched on Christmas Eve, huh?”
“So I gather.”
“I’ll bet there’s quite a story behind that marriage.”
“Probably.” Lucy kept her voice noncommittal. What inside information she had about their elusive boss’s sudden plunge into matrimonial waters, she didn’t intend to share. Nor was she about to mention her unwitting but undeniably crucial role in the affair. “I don’t think we should go digging around trying to find out what it is, though.”
“Butt into Mr. Gulliver’s personal life?” Jimmy shook his head in unequivocal rejection. “No way. Nosiree. What he wants me to know, he’ll tell me. What he wants to keep private, I’m gonna keep my nose out of.” He paused, his expression turning thoughtful. “It kind of creeped me out in the beginning, you know. Mr. Gulliver’s only communicating with us through faxes, E-mail and over the phone, that is. And it was always business, business, business-with him. But I started sensing a change of tone right after Thanksgiving. Well, no. A little before that, actually. I mean, even though you said you’d square it away with him, I expected to get fired once he found out about my booking Josh and Cari Keegan on a cruise that turned out to be a front for drug runners! But the boss was really understanding about it. And then he personally picked up the tab for the agency’s Christmas open house—”
“The First Annual, Fabulously Famous Gulliver’s Travels Holiday Party, you mean,” Lucy corrected, invoking the grandiose title by which the bash was known around the office.
“Yeah. Right.” Jimmy grinned reminiscently. “That was some blowout, huh?”
“That it was.”
“Think the boss might spring for another shindig around Mardi Gras?”
“Jimmy!”
“Just kidding. Although it would be a good way to recycle those masks Tiffany bought for that big New Orleans promotion we did about eighteen months back.”
“I can definitely picture you wearing the one with the purple plumes,” she retorted with a quick laugh.
“Na
h. I’ve got my eye on the alligator headpiece.” He winked. “Speaking of holiday shindigs—what kind of plans do you have for tonight?”
The query caught Lucy off guard, although it probably shouldn’t have. She managed a casual shrug and reverted to-the paper-shuffling ploy she’d used with Tiffany. “Oh, this and that.”
“Meaning you’re going to stay home by yourself. Just like last year. And the year before that.”
She looked up. She did not want to go through this again. “You think there’s something wrong with that?”
“No. Of course not. I mean, you have mixed feelings about the holiday, right? I can understand that.”
Lucy’s heart seemed to skip a beat. “You...can?”
“Sure. For all the hoopla, New Year’s Eve is really a time for taking stock. And that can be a little depressing. You find yourself looking back on all the things you intended to get done in the previous three-hundred-sixty-odd days and realizing that you never got around to doing any of ‘em. Then you feel compelled to make a bunch of resolutions that you know deep down you’re never going to—”
“I don’t do that.”
The ex-used car salesman eyed her curiously for a few moments, plainly taken aback by the sharpness of her assertion. Lucy shifted uneasily, wishing she’d kept quiet.
“You don’t?” he finally asked.
An echo reached Lucy across the distance of eleven years. Words from her wedding night. Words that were etched in her brain. Imprinted on her heart.
I think we should make a resolution.
A resolution?
To live happily ever after.
Together?
Absolutely.
“Not...anymore,” she clarified, tempering her tone and disciplining her features to hide the pain she was feeling. No matter that the passage of time was supposed to heal all wounds. It still hurt to remember how she and Chris had toasted the resolution she’d proposed. How they’d pledged their mutual love with words and deeds.