A Winning Battle

by Carla Neggers

  But she couldn’t.

  And so she’d called William Norton and now was on her way over to his office, not knowing precisely what she was getting herself into, which wasn’t like Page B. Harrington at all.

  William’s secretary told her to go right into his office. She did. William looked up from his desk and shook his head miserably and he said, “Oh, Page... I feel so guilty.”

  “And well you should.”

  “You’re not going to let me off the hook, huh?”

  “I trusted you, William. Did you know he was planning to do a column on me? Did you owe him a favor, did he bribe you, were you angry with me?”

  “No, yes, yes, and no, of course not.”

  Page blinked and digested his answers, having forgotten, at least momentarily, that William Norton wasn’t an easy man to figure. A true eccentric, which made helping him organize himself more than an ordinary challenge. She should have known instantly that he was the traitor.

  “What was the bribe?”

  “Celtics tickets—for the memo.” He twitched uncomfortably in his chair and scratched behind his ear with the eraser end of his pencil. “And, uh, well, I also let him bribe me about this afternoon.”

  Page frowned, and her pulse quickened. “What about this afternoon?”

  “I told him you found out about me, and he said you’d be disappointed if he didn’t show.”

  “And you believed him!”

  “Well, no, not exactly, but he— God, Page, I really do feel guilty.”

  She regarded her former client with open suspicion, but she couldn’t deny the excitement that gripped her. “‘Fess up, William.”

  “I told him you were on your way over,” he said haltingly, “and I agreed—”

  “You what!”

  “Hello, Page B.”

  Chris Battle’s rich voice was like a warm, heavy liquid on her spine. As she turned, she took in everything in one swift glance—his beat-up running shoes, his rugged twill pants, his blue chambray shirt rolled up to just below his elbows, his tanned, hairy forearms, his strong neck, his stubborn jaw, his narrowed slate eyes and his tousled dark hair. There was nothing extraordinary about his looks—except, perhaps, the extraordinary effect they had on her. She herself was dressed in a classic but smart navy suit. Before stepping into William’s trendy building, she’d carefully wiped the spring mud off her shoes. Chris Battle hadn’t bothered.

  “Good afternoon,” she said stiffly, before flying back around at William, who’d slunk down in his chair and had begun unwinding a paper clip. She inhaled and said scathingly on the exhale, “Well? How did he get you to sell me out this time?”

  William looked miserable. “Bruins tickets.”

  “Your thirty pieces of silver.”

  “Oh, come off it,” Chris interrupted. “Why don’t you make him feel worse than he already does?”

  “I intend to! William, how could you? Hockey tickets—my God.”

  “They’re seats behind the penalty box.”

  “I don’t care if they’re on the fifty-yard line!”

  William cracked a meager smile. “No fifty-yard line in hockey, Page. You have two blue lines and a center red line—”

  “I know there’s no fifty-yard line. It was just an expression, and you are not going to get me off track. William, I trusted you.”

  “And I trust Chris. Page, we all have our breaking points—even you.”

  Chris laughed, sounding genuinely amused. “Page B. have a weakness? Perish the thought, my man. She’s told you what the B stands for, hasn’t she? Barracuda. Page Barracuda Harrington. If a barracuda has a weakness, I don’t want to go through all the trouble of finding out what it is. Might get my hand bitten off.”

  Page groaned. “Enough!”

  As she flew around, she wished she had long, wild hair so it could whip into her face and make her look even more ferocious. But she didn’t. Her short, neat hair stayed in place. “Hockey tickets,” she said with a derisive snort, glaring at Chris. She hated being betrayed, but her anger was more a pretense than a reality. It helped disguise the rush of excitement—or pure energy—that she felt at seeing Chris again. “Well, you’re here. Now what?”

  He gave her a disarming grin. “Coffee?”

  The man certainly knew how to deflate her anger. Out of the corner of her eye she caught William, the rat, holding back a smirk. She recalled he wasn’t married and, feeling vengeful, thought of Millie. She imagined her and William together and had to smile. Yes, indeed. Millie owed her one—owed her more than one, in fact. Revenge might be a waste of time, but there were those moments when it could be ever so sweet.

  “Meet me at Rebecca’s Cafe in five minutes,” she told Chris, adding ominously, “I want to finish with William first.”

  “Sounds as if you plan to cut off a few of his fingers,” Chris said with ill-timed amusement. “I’ll wait outside for two minutes, and we’ll go together. William, if I hear a scream, I’ll race right in here to your rescue.”

  “Small comfort,” William mumbled.

  Page said innocently, “Don’t you trust me to meet you?”

  Chris laughed. “Nope, not a chance.”

  She supposed that in his position she would do the same. Five minutes to herself and she might just chuck the whole business and head back to her office and file papers. Or jump on the subway and go straight to Logan Airport and the nearest ticket counter. She could go to Paris. Spring in Paris sounded delightful.

  But not as energizing, she had to admit, as coffee with Christopher O. Battle. She hadn’t felt so...so alive in weeks.

  “All right,” she said. “Give me two minutes.”

  Battle swaggered out—it was a swagger, too—and Page folded her arms under her breasts and faced William as she might a rebellious eight-year-old. “So I’m not even worth the sacrifice of a couple of Bruins tickets.”

  “Page, Page, not many are, but you—definitely you are. Honestly. I’d never have given him the okay except for— Never mind. I’ve got a meeting.”

  “Except for what, William?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Tell me. I think I have a right to know why people I consider my friends would accept hockey and basketball tickets as bribes from someone who’s obviously out to get me.”

  “That’s just it, Page.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  William looked as if he’d regretted even opening his mouth, but he went ahead, “Chris and you— Lord, you’re meant for each other. You know my forte is putting together the unexpected. Well, that’s what you two are. Unexpected. But you’re so damn organized that you’d likely have organized yourself right out of any chance with this guy if I hadn’t... well, allowed myself to be bribed. I’d have done something, anyway, once I found out Chris was after you. The tickets were just an added incentive.” He sighed, shaking his head, an expression of warmth and friendship on his face. “Page, look at you. You backed yourself into such a corner that unless someone acted—namely me—you could very well have let Battle slip right by.”

  “William, you’re not making any sense.”

  “Tell me that in two months.”

  She scowled, not willing to get serious about backing herself into a corner and Chris Battle being perfect for her. She couldn’t get serious about such things, because then she’d have to examine the potential consequences and...

  Well, it was best to maintain what Millie would no doubt call her schoolgirl attitude. She told William, “You just don’t want me chopping off your fingers.”

  He laughed a little nervously. “Oh, that’s just Chris talking. I know you wouldn’t resort to violence.”

  But Millie Friedenbach she would resort to. “When’s the hockey game?”

  “Tonight.” William was having difficulty looking sheepish.

  “Got anyone to go with?”

  “I’m working on it. I’ve got a couple of buddies I can call.”

  “As it so happens, Willi
am, I have a friend who loves hockey—a woman.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Uh-huh. Tall, blond, willowy.”

  “Do I know her?”

  “I doubt it. Her name’s Millie Friedenbach.” She’s strong as an ox and if you get out of line with her, well, one simply didn’t. “Here, I’ll give you her number.” She jotted it down on the calendar she’d suggested he purchase. “Call her.”

  William beamed. “I will. Thanks, Page. I’m glad there’s no hard feelings.”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Chris poked his head back in the office. “Your two minutes are up.”

  She gave him a look filled with challenge. “Going to club me and haul me off on your shoulder?”

  “Who needs a club?” he said, and started toward her.

  “All right!’ She turned once more to William. “Don’t forget Millie.”

  “I won’t.”

  “And I’ll—”

  But Battle grabbed her wrist, and what she did was get out the door and follow him onto Newbury Street.

  * * *

  A TINY BRANCH of the much larger Rebecca’s on Charles Street, the Rebecca’s on Newbury Street wasn’t crowded. The menu—mostly soups and sandwiches and irresistible sweets—was written on blackboards behind the glass counters, and with the limited seating everything was available to go. Given the gorgeous weather, most people had taken their food outside. But Page and Chris ordered large coffees and sat at a small table in the dark, windowless rear of the cafe. At this point, Page thought, sunshine seemed relatively unimportant.

  Chris sipped the very hot coffee and studied Page over the rim of the paper cup in a manner that made it impossible for her to look away. He said, “You’re not really mad, are you?”

  “At whom—you or William?”

  “Both.”

  She shrugged in an attempt to appear cool and clinical, exactly the opposite of how she felt. How had she managed two weeks without this kind of interplay? She sighed. “Who can stay mad at William? He’s like a big teddy bear—but talented, I’ll warrant. He’s also your friend and has been, I gather, for some time. His loyalty to you would be greater than to me.”

  Chris’s eyes danced. “Do you analyze everything?”

  “I’m just trying to give a complete answer.” She spoke calmly, refusing to let him get to her, and dumped two half-and-halfs into her coffee. “As for you, I must say it’s interesting to have someone so determined to get to me that he’ll give up prized Celtics and Bruins tickets. That’s never happened to me before. It’s not easy to stay angry when one’s experiencing something new.”

  Chris scowled. “So that’s what I am—a new experience?”

  “Well, I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

  She hadn’t meant her voice to sound like that, so deep, almost sultry, almost flirtatious. She decided to blame the warm breeze that had floated in as the door opened and closed, letting in a steady stream of people. Analyzing her anger was relatively safe—it made it easier to keep her distance—but analyzing her reaction to Chris Battle didn’t seem safe at all.

  He seemed to sense her discomfort and, instead of pouncing, smiled. “Ditto for me as far as you’re concerned.”

  “Does that mean you’ve decided not to do your column on professional organizers?”

  “Yeah. I gave myself two weeks to quit thinking about wanting to kiss you, and you know what?” He set down his coffee and hooked one arm over the back of the chair, his eyes lost in the shadows of the dark corner where their table was. His mouth twitched; he seemed so at ease with himself and with her. “It didn’t work.”

  “I see.” She didn’t know what else to say.

  “Page B., I hate to tell you, but you don’t see at all.” He fished in his jacket pocket and produced what appeared to be two burned matches and placed them in the center of the table. “Here.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He said, “Two burned matches.”

  “That’s what I thought. Do they have any significance?”

  “Yeah, they have a lot of significance. They’re what I used to burn all the notes I took on you, your clients, your work, all my aborted drafts, everything. I burned it all. I was going to bring you the ashes but—” he unhooked his arm from the back of his chair and picked up his coffee cup “—too messy.”

  She picked up one of the charred matches and watched the tip break off, crumbling. “You’re giving up?”

  “Quitting. It’s different from giving up. Page B., if I wanted to pursue this story, I would—and nothing you did would stop me.”

  “You’d just be spinning your wheels, Christopher O.,” she said, mimicking him. “But never mind. Of all things, I wouldn’t have pegged you as someone who’d quit.”

  “I made a conscious ethical decision after taking an honest look at all the facts and feelings involved with this piece.”

  “Meaning?”

  He smiled. “Don’t you understand your own kind of pompous-ass mumbo jumbo? What I mean is simply that I can’t in good conscience write about you. I’m not sure I believe there’s such a thing as objectivity—we all state our convictions from within our convictions, as some philosopher once said. But a journalist still has to maintain at least some sense of objectivity.”

  “You’re a columnist,” she pointed out. “You’re never objective. You let people have it all the time.”

  “Yes, but I let them cook their own gooses. I don’t cook them for them. I try to go at my stories from as objective a standpoint as I can.” He paused and gave her a long look, adding, “I don’t write about my friends.”

  “Never?”

  “Never.”

  “I suppose that’s commendable.”

  He laughed. “I haven’t heard that word since my second-grade teacher congratulated me for writing my name so she could read it. Commendable or not, that’s the code I operate under. No columns about friends or ex-wives or women I’ve gone to bed with—or want to go to bed with.”

  His look was direct and honest and made Page want to run because she knew she wasn’t a friend or an ex-wife or a woman who had ever been to bed with him. That only left a woman he wanted to go to bed with, which was in another ballpark altogether from just being a woman he felt like kissing.

  “Forget it,” she said.

  “Hmm?”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Meaning you don’t believe what I’m saying, or you don’t believe I’m saying what I’m saying?”

  He was having a damn good time. Too good. She went on crisply. “Meaning I don’t believe you burned your notes or anything resembling your notes. Meaning I’m not your friend, I’m not your ex-wife, I’m not a woman you’ve been to bed with and I’m not a woman you have any desire of going to bed with. Meaning, in short, that I think this is just another of your ploys to get into my office so you can do your article.”

  She didn’t get to him, not at all. He drank some coffee and shook his head. “You just don’t want to admit it.”

  “Admit what?”

  “That you’re attracted to me just as much as I am to you.” His gaze leveled on her in such a way she couldn’t bring herself to turn away. “You, Ms Organizer, have had thoughts about going to bed with me, and don’t you deny it.”

  She inhaled deeply. “I refuse to discuss such matters in...in a business setting.”

  “Don’t go priggish on me. Look, we’ve gotten off to a bad start, I’ll admit. So take the two matches and consider this a new beginning—a truce, even. Forget I ever thought professional organizers were silly or sleazy. Forget I ever figured I’d stick it to you good in my column. Forget the whole mess. Okay? We’ll start over.”

  “It’s not working.”

  He sighed. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

  “How perceptive of you.”

  “Well, I guess I can’t blame you. Want to go back to my apartment and see my pile of ashes?”

  She di
dn’t hesitate for a second. “Yes.”

  She didn’t think his swallow of coffee went down too well. “You’re serious?”

  “Damn right.”

  “You’re willing to be alone with me in my apartment even after I’ve told you I have designs on your body?”

  “Sure. You’ve said yourself—and to some degree proved—that brutishness isn’t your style. Lying and cheating and sneaking around, yes. But not brutishness. When it really counts, you’ll take no for an answer. So, Mr. Battle, shall we?” She grinned at him, knowing she had him. Ashes my hind end, she thought. “I’d love to see your ashes.”

  * * *

  They walked up Newbury and, instead of taking one of the meandering paths through the Public Garden, cut directly down Arlington and crossed over to Beacon Street. Chris wasn’t once tempted to take Page B. Harrington’s hand and swing it. She’d probably bite his wrist off. She was in just that kind of mood. He couldn’t blame her, but did she have to be so damn thorough?

  Out of the corner of one eye, while pretending to be completely at ease with the situation, he studied her and wondered how he’d lasted two weeks without seeing her. At night he’d sat at his desk and seen the light in her window across the Garden, and imagined her sitting there, looking for the light in his attic window. Did she ever daydream? Did she ever acknowledge that it was far, far more than a simple waste of time? Somehow, he thought so. There was a sensitive woman beneath all that starch and vinegar. He admired her competence and intelligence, but he wanted to dig deeper and find out what else was there. He wanted to hear her tell him her hopes and her dreams as she lay in his arms.

  Fat chance, he thought dismally.

  Making love to her seemed such a hopeless longing on his part. They were so different, Page and him. If only it were just her turquoise eyes and trim shape that he found so attractive. But he also was drawn to her laugh, her quick wit, her concern for others...and her mystery. What made her tick was as big a question now as it had been weeks ago. Only now he wanted to know for his own sake, not his column’s.