A Winning Battle

by Carla Neggers

  “So Millie and William are sure after a few weeks. With other people it takes years.”

  “As a matter of principle,” she said in her organizer’s voice, “people shouldn’t get married until they’ve known each other at least a year.”

  A year! Chris nearly choked.

  He decided he’d better not tell Page B. that he had no intention of waiting a whole year. First, he thought, he had to resolve the Friedenbach-Norton dilemma.

  “ ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave...’”

  Page gave him a sharp look. “Hmm?”

  “I was remarking on the view. Boston’s spectacular from the air, isn’t it?”

  * * *

  Page had decided to let one Christopher O. Battle cook his own goose.

  As she leaned against the counter at the car rental booth, letting him do the honors, she noticed a sexy film of sweat on his neck, just above the rather frayed collar of his chambray shirt. It was warm in Orlando. But not that warm.

  The man was up to no good.

  “You know where Millie and William are staying?” she asked.

  “Yeah...sort of.” He shoved the rental receipt in his wallet and grinned at the clerk as he headed off with the key. Page followed. “Some hotel.”

  “Which? This is Disney country. Vacation land. There must be dozens.”

  “Uh, we’ll figure that out. Come on.”

  He’d rented an inexpensive compact. Red. Page would have specified a neutral color. She hated red cars. Chris, however, seemed pleased as he patted the hood and said it looked pretty good to him. He unlocked the passenger side for her. “Sure you don’t want to drive?”

  “Quite,” she said. “You’re the one who can find Millie.”

  “Right.”

  He got in the driver’s seat and drove.

  When they reached the Bay Hill Country Club, he turned into a vacant driveway. “Missed my turn,” he said.

  “Do you know where you’re going?” she asked dubiously.

  “Sure.”

  “I don’t see any hotels. How far are we from Disney World?”

  “About thirty miles, I think.”

  Millie Friedenbach would never stay thirty miles from anywhere. Page could almost hear her friend: “I’d have to listen to Beth yammering all the way to Disney World about Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. If I’m going to Disney World, I’m going to stay as close to Goofy and company as I can.”

  Page had never been to Disney World, but she understood there were hotels within the amusement park grounds. That was where Millie would be.

  If she was in Florida, which Page was beginning to think was questionable.

  What the devil was Battle up to this time?

  The car air-conditioning worked perfectly—certainly she wasn’t sweating—but he had perspiration stains in his armpits now, as well. He was a hot-blooded male, and she reveled in the feel of the film of perspiration on his back after they’d made love. But this was different. This was guilt sweat.

  “Are you sure we’re not lost?” she asked.

  “Yep. Just missed my turn, is all.”

  ‘Would you like me to look for a sign?”

  “Uh-uh.”

  Because there was no sign, just a road. A dirt road at that. It was barely a car’s width and disappeared into an orange grove. Chris turned off the air-conditioning and rolled down his window, and Page did the same. They could smell the sweet smell of the trees, apparently just coming back after the bad freezes of the past few years.

  “This isn’t a hotel,” Page said.

  “Oh...did you think we were going to a hotel?”

  “Chris...”

  “My mind must have been elsewhere. I haven’t been out here in a while.”

  Page frowned. “Out where?”

  Chris turned to her and grinned, a wide, sexy, unabashed grin. “Do I detect a note of doubt in your tone?”

  They bumped over a series of ruts; the citrus trees were so close she could have reached out and pulled off the glossy green leaves. Page leaned her head back against the seat. All she wanted was to breathe in the fresh, scented air. Why not just roll with Chris and his latest nefarious scheme?

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “Here,” he said as they came to a wide clearing in the middle of the grove.

  A pink stucco cottage of Old Florida vintage with pink and red and yellow roses climbing on its open porch stood at one side of the clearing. Beyond it was a huge lawn of rich green grass and fat cedar trees and, along the tiny lake at the opposite edge of the grove, weeping willows. A huge yellow cat lay stretching in the sun on a picnic table.

  Chris turned to Page and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand. “Well, darling,” he said, any look of guilt gone, “welcome to heaven.”

  Chapter Twelve

  The light scent of the roses and the pungent scent of the freshly mowed grass overpowered Page as she followed Chris toward the cottage, and she felt that strange fullness of unfocused emotion. She was reminded of how orderly her life had been before Christopher O. Battle had blundered into it. How steady her routines. How stable she’d felt. There had been those occasional flirtations with spring fever, but the first warm days after a long winter could do that to anyone. She’d had such control over her life.

  Now she was in Florida, which wasn’t exactly her own doing, and she was smelling roses and fresh grass and feeling the warmth of the sun on the back of her neck. And she was thinking heaven should be as beautiful as this place. And hearing herself sigh. And brushing her fingertips across the petals of a perfect pink rose blossom and feeling her insides swell with a motley of emotions.

  In the groves surrounding the cottage birds twittered.

  Don’t let yourself be seduced by flowers and birds!

  Calling upon all her considerable powers of self-discipline, she drew herself up straight and inhaled sharply and deeply. She refused to smell anything but a rat.

  Said rat was whistling a tune as he found a key under a flower pot and unlocked the back door to the cottage, his shirt, Page noticed with satisfaction, matted to his back. All appearances aside, he didn’t know how she’d reacted to being tricked: she had yet to say a word about his “heaven.”

  Let him roast, she thought.

  But the roses and the warmth accosted her senses once more, and she had to stiffen her spine and will herself to maintain her sense of outrage. Chris had manipulated her.

  He glanced over his shoulder as she followed him into the kitchen. “Cute little place, isn’t it?”

  “Adorable.”

  She was being curt, but not inaccurate. The kitchen was old-fashioned and painted white, with cheerful yellow curtains and tablecloth and open shelves stacked with simple white dishes. There were no fancy appliances: a clear glass percolator stood on the stove, and a dented aluminum dishpan hung on a hook by the sink. Page could feel all the starch in her turning to sop as the infectious charm of the place took its toll.

  Chris opened the refrigerator, half humming, half whistling. “Aha! Look what we have here. Perfection!”

  He seized a pitcher of fresh-squeezed orange juice and set it on the countertop while he got down two glasses and proceeded to fill them. Page didn’t offer to help. She stood awkwardly by the table and kept telling herself that she’d been tricked and her nostrils ought to be filled with rat odors and her heart with outrage. But all she could think about was the feel of that cold orange juice coursing down her throat and the joy of being in this lovely place alone with Chris.

  He handed her a glass. “We’ll sit out on the porch and relax a minute. How’s that?”

  “Fine.” Page gritted her teeth against the emotions churning inside her, as if that would help to keep them locked in. “Um, whose place is this?”

  “Fellow by the name of Lawrence Cutter.”

  “Friend of yours?”

  “Yep. He writes for the Orlando paper.”

  “Where is he?”
r />   “On his way to Boston, I expect.”

  Chris took a sip of orange juice and headed down a gleaming oak-floored hall to the front porch. He plopped down on a slatted swing. Page settled her bottom on the flat rail of the porch—a dangerous move. The smell of roses surrounded her; it was nearly impossible to smell a rat.

  Leaning back, Chris looked at ease. Smug, even. Too at ease, too smug. As if he’d already gotten away with whatever it was he was up to.

  Which Page had a sneaking suspicion he had.

  “Why’s this friend of yours going to Boston?” she asked. She decided she’d hang him one question at a time.

  “Research for an article he’s decided to write.”

  “On what?”

  “On Boston.”

  “That’s rather vague. Has he been planning to write this article for very long?”

  He gave the swing a little push with his feet. “Well, he’s always wanted to go to Boston.”

  “Why now?”

  “Because I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

  Naturally. “Which was?”

  “A week at my place on Beacon Hill in exchange for a week at his place here. You know how much a week at the Four Seasons costs?”

  “There are more inexpensive hotels. When did you make this deal?”

  He stuck out his toe and stopped the swing, his slate eyes lost in the shadows on the porch. “About three minutes after you called yesterday afternoon.”

  Page said nothing.

  “It seemed like a propitious moment. Lawrence was thrilled. Turned out his wife had some time coming to her at her job and could go with him. They’re making it sort of a second honeymoon.”

  “How nice,” Page said.

  Chris unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, then balled it up and cast it on the white-painted floor. He sat there in his sweaty white undershirt. Page noticed the dark hairs poking out along the neckline and looked away.

  She asked, “Then you’re planning to stay here a week?”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “You didn’t bring any luggage.”

  He shrugged. “If I had, you’d have gotten suspicious.”

  “I already was suspicious!” But she calmed herself down; there was no point in losing control until she had all the facts. “What about Millie and William?”

  “They’re not here.”

  She balled her hands into fists and kicked the rail. “Dammit, I know they’re not here!” She tried to rein in her emotions but couldn’t as she glared at Chris, who seemed pleased by her fast-ebbing control, as if she wasn’t quite so tightly wound as he sometimes imagined. “Where the hell are they?”

  “Bermuda.”

  ‘‘Bermuda!”

  Chris nodded. “I’m to distract you long enough for them to get married in peace.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means, darling, that they adore you and appreciate your friendship and your thoughtfulness—but they don’t want you trying to talk them out of getting married.”

  She said nothing, the impact of his words hitting her hard. Her friends didn’t want her meddling. That was what Chris was saying.

  “They knew your first impulse would be to stop them,” he added, his smooth tone more merciless than angry. “I know you think they’re out of control, but who isn’t when they’re in love?”

  He had a point, but she said, “They don’t trust me.”

  “Of course they trust you. But they also know you. Their deepest romantic fantasy has been to fall madly in love and sneak off to some paradise island and get married. All right, so ‘reality’ has bumped and bruised them. So they’ve both been divorced and Millie has a six-year-old daughter. They know they’re not kids. But they know what they want. They’ve learned from their mistakes, and they know they can’t go through life being afraid to make new ones.”

  “I just wanted to be sure...”

  “For their sake or for yours?”

  She inhaled deeply and suddenly couldn’t answer, couldn’t think. Swinging her legs over the rail, she jumped into the soft grass and fled across the lawn to the edge of the tiny lake. She had to pull herself together! What did all this mean? Were Millie and William trying to tell her anything?

  Yes, she thought. That they knew her just as well as she prided herself in knowing them.

  She felt Chris’s presence behind her and was relieved when he didn’t touch her. Physical contact now would only further confuse her—and distract her. She didn’t turn around but looked out across the still lake.

  “I’m not just a meddler,” she said, half to herself.

  “I know.”

  “I tried to explain to you the first day we met that my goal always is to help people better understand themselves and work with what they have—not always with what they want, what they dream of getting, what they always believe will be around the next corner.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Chris said. “Part of your success lies in your ability to accept people’s differences, their peculiarities, what makes them tick. You don’t impose your values and systems on them.”

  “I’m not a fraud.”

  “Of course not. Millie and William know that—and so do I.”

  “Then why are they in Bermuda and I’m in Florida?”

  Chris came and stood beside her. “Because you’re the victim of a nefarious plot.”

  “Because my own impulsiveness clouded my judgment! I should have stepped back outside of myself a minute and figured out what was going on.”

  “Page B., you’re allowed.”

  “Allowed what? A chance to make an ass of myself?”

  “A chance to dream,” he said. “A chance to blow with the wind like everyone else. You don’t always have to be in control. You can’t be. No one can. I should have told you what was going on last night, but I... well, I couldn’t resist. It was a chance to try to do you one up again. I was having a good time. I forgot that you might not appreciate being decoyed off to Florida.” He tried a grin on her. “You have to admit you fell for everything I said without even considering I might be...” He fumbled for the right word.

  Page supplied one. “Lying?”

  “I prefer... ‘strategizing’.”

  She sighed, squinting at the sun. She’d need a hat if she was going to stay here for a while. But she stiffened at the thought, feeling a wave of panic. I cant stay! Was she beyond help even to consider that she could?

  “All I wanted was to help my friends.”

  “Page, you don’t always have to have all the answers. Some things don’t have answers. Whether Millie and William should get married is one of them. Why they’re in love is another.”

  “You know…” she said, looking out at the lake as a fish jumped and disappeared, leaving behind a pattern of concentric circles. It was so quiet here. Heaven, she thought. “When you quoted the ticket prices at Logan, I knew you were the one who’d canceled our return flight. I knew you were up to something, and I didn’t stop you. I— Dammit, I don’t know what got into me! And now Millie and William...”

  “Are in Bermuda having a hell of a time.”

  “Knowing them, I’d say so.”

  “You’ve done too much to help them for either to ever resent you. They accept you for who you are. Accept them for who they are.”

  “I do!”

  “Then you’ll toast them with champagne at four o’clock when they exchange their vows? William asked us to.”

  She glanced at him, a maniacal smile on her face. “Think we could make Bermuda by four?”

  His eyes darkened. “Page B....”

  “I’m kidding.” She laughed, then slipped an arm around his waist. “You’re all sweaty.”

  “Can’t imagine why. I’ve been expecting you to nail me to the wall ever since I cooked up this scheme.”

  “What happens now?”

  He put his arm around her, too. “We make the best of the situation.�
��

  “I figured you’d say something like that. How’re we supposed to get back to Boston? We have no return tickets.”

  “Sure we do.”

  “We do?”

  “For next Wednesday.”

  “Wednesday! But that’s a whole week from now! My work—”

  “Your work will not suffer. You told me yourself you had a lull so you could take a couple of days off to ‘regroup’—an organizer’s phrase if I’ve ever heard one—and catch up on some busywork in your office and work on a book on getting organized. I’m sure you can buy notebooks in Florida and set your things up on the porch and work on your book. That’s exactly where I intend to write my next column, which I will dutifully call in to my editor. ‘Busy work’ implies something that can wait. So let it wait. And if you can’t ‘regroup’ here, where the hell can you?”

  She sighed, her uneasiness dissipating, giving way to the feeling of warmth and excitement of being with him. “You can be persuasive, you know.”

  He laughed. “Why do you think I’m nationally syndicated?”

  “We have no luggage.”

  His arm edged higher up her side and stopped just under her breast. “Who needs clothes?”

  “You’re a rat.”

  “Have you ever made love in the grass?” he asked, swinging her around in front of him and bringing his mouth close to hers.

  “There might be alligators in that lake,” she said, settling her hands on his chest. “And the soil’s pretty sandy. What if we land on a mound of little bitty black ants that’ll bite your behind?”

  “Or worse,” he added with a shudder. “Always so practical.”

  “But it’d be a shame to waste this beautiful day. I did notice a wicker lounge on the porch...”

  “Sometimes, my darling, we do think alike.”

  * * *

  The couch was covered in pink chintz and not terribly wide. If they rolled one way, Page reckoned, they’d hit the prickly wicker back. If they rolled the other way, they’d fall on the floor. And if anyone drove up the long driveway, they’d be caught.

  “The bedroom?” Chris asked.