Authors: Barbara Delinsky
“I believe you were about to blast me, Dr. Patterson.” Smooth as his casually lounging stance against the door, his voice was nearly her undoing. Frantically struggling to recall her objective, she blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
“Ten minutes doesn’t give me much time, Senator Charles.”
The gray eyes fell indolently to a wide-banded gold watch at his wrist. “Nine minutes and counting,” he mocked softly.
It was his very mockery that steadied her. With a deep breath, she began. “My organization respects everything that you are trying to do in Washington.” Even to her own ear, the wooden sound of her voice was awkward. “The Rights of Minors Act, if it passes, could be a noble first step. Your bill touches on all the major points—”
“Dr. Patterson,” he interrupted, crossing his arms over his chest, “I didn’t come here to listen to flattery, although—” again the faint mockery “—it is always appreciated. But let’s get to the point, shall we? What are your objections?” His directness startled her, momentarily tying her tongue as she wondered exactly how blunt she dared be. “Well…?” he prodded, glancing again at his watch for effect. Furious at his insolence, disgusted at her own timidity, she finally spoke.
“It’s all watered down. The bill doesn’t go far enough.” There seemed no point in soft-pedaling her criticisms. “You’ve touched on all the critical matters of education, housing, health care, parental responsibility, legal representation, custody, adoption, and protection from abuse and neglect, but you simply don’t go far enough.” Pausing to catch her breath, she studied the intent face before her, but to no avail.
“Go on.” His reaction, if any, was well hidden behind the mask of the politician. But, having been started on a subject so dear to her, Daran would have continued now even in the face of outright fury.
“Take the matter of health care. Whether it is something as urgent as the early treatment of cancer, or a thing as fundamental as good nutrition, or the simple right of a child to have his teeth straightened and save himself innumerable problems later in life—your general wording is not going to guarantee these things.”
When she paused this time, it was for a totally different reason. For the placid mask had slipped to reveal an unexpected and, from her point of view, unappreciated, smugness. Deep inside, she wondered whether this overbearing man had heard a word she had just said. To her subsequent chagrin, the thought tumbled forth.
“You’re looking particularly pleased with yourself, Senator. Am I missing something?” Her choice of wording could not have been worse, for the suggestive light which came to his eye.
“Oh, it’s not
me
I’m pleased with. And, no, you’re not missing a thing.” With infinite slowness and devastating thoroughness, his eye traveled her length, his meaning crystal clear.
Indignance lifted her chin. “Did you hear what I’ve told you … about the Rights of Minors Act?”
“Uh-huh.” His gaze locked once more with her own. This time the shiver that passed through her could not be suppressed. In its wake, her own mind began to recalculate.
Despite the image that had preceded him, she had planned to confront a senator, an esteemed higher-up of the United States governmental structure. Instead, she found herself face-to-face with a man and acutely aware of her own existence as a woman. Her challenge was an impulsive one. “Senator, may I ask a straight question?” At his immediate nod, she plundered on. “What did you expect to find when you arrived here today?” The male mind was often more simple to understand at its most base stage. In this assumption she was right on target.
Without hesitation of voice or lapse of eyehold, the senator confirmed her suspicion. “I pictured a Dr. Patterson who was very intelligent, very dedicated, and very plain. I was right on the first two counts.”
Ignoring the lefthanded compliment, Daran bristled at the chauvinistic edge to his arrogance. “And why must a woman who is intelligent and dedicated be
plain,
if I might ask?” Her hands had moved to her hips and sat there now in subtle provocation. At that particular moment, she was unaware of exactly how far from plain she was. With the wisps of curls escaped from their tentative bonds and setting her face in a sensual frame, the flush of anger, excitement, or both on her cheeks, and the sparks of gold flickering in her eyes, she was a stunning woman.
“Obviously, she is not.” For the first time his broad smile graced her with a view of those even white teeth that supposedly won hearts over right and left. But Daran’s heart had been won and broken long ago, in another state, by another man. It would take more than a bright smile to win her over this time.
As she steeled herself for an appropriate response, her adversary moved fluidly from the door and slowly approached her. “You get more beautiful as you get worked up. That takes skill.” He mocked her and she detested it, yet words eluded her. Mesmerized by the eyes that surveyed her face before settling, finally, on her lips, she felt the beginnings of a quiver of something strange within her, then the moment abruptly snapped.
“Come on. Time’s up.” A large tan hand took her elbow.
“But I haven’t had a chance to say anything!” she protested, eyes rounding in dismay that the audience was over so soon with nothing to prove for the effort.
“Oh, you began quite well,” he assured her, drawing her beside him toward the door. Suddenly he halted as sharp eyes scanned the room. Frowning, he asked absently, “Do you have a purse or something that you cannot do without for an hour or so?”
Bewildered, she merely stared. “Where am I going?”
Nonchalance ruled his every move as he spotted, then reached for, her pocketbook, not for a minute releasing her arm. “I’m hungry. We’re going out for lunch.”
“But I don’t understand—” The door slammed shut behind them as he set a steady pace toward the hall.
From what seemed to be a full head above her, he looked down indulgently. “Lunch. You know, that meal in the middle of the day which one normally consumes to revive oneself?”
“I know what lunch is—” embarrassment painted a faint rose on her cheek “—but I thought you had only ten minutes to spare. What about that busy schedule you legislators supposedly have? What about that image of the man-about-town grabbing a sandwich on the run?”
They reached the hall, then the stairs. Daran was all too well aware of the hand that tightened beneath her elbow to compensate for the precariousness of her high-heeled step as they spiraled down the two flights.
“I need nourishment if I’m going to keep to that schedule. And a sandwich on the run only risks crumbs on my suit. We have an hour.” He went on without a breath. “Where do you suggest we go?” But before she could open her mouth to venture a possibility, Drew Charles answered his own question. “How about—” he cast a glance her way “—oh, I forget that you’re new here. There’s a terrific little place you’ll never have heard of—”
“Athena’s?” A tight grin of her own escaped as they approached the exit.
Silver eyes reflected his surprise graciously. “You’ve heard of it?”
“Even we professional women have to eat,” she retorted pertly. “And it does happen to have the best Greek salad around.”
“Salad? My God, no wonder you’re so slim. I could go for some baked lamb right about now. Hey, John!” They had arrived, slightly breathlessly on Daran’s part, in the parking lot and the waiting aide came running. “Listen, John. Dr. Patterson and I have some unfinished business to attend to. Why don’t you go ahead to the insurance seminar. Tell them I’m on my way. Stan and Dewey should be there already. Give me an hour.”
With a mischievous wink in Daran’s direction, John grinned widely at his boss. “Sure thing. Say—” he lowered his voice to a tone of mock secrecy “—do you need any money?” The senator’s game plan was no mystery to his friend. In the instant Daran sensed that she was but one and the latest of many women to be given the rush. Before she could demur, she found herself drawn in the opposite direction from the aide as the tall man beside her called over his shoulder, “No, thanks. The lady is loaded.”
“What?” Protest finally exploded.
“Point out your car and let me have the keys.” Reversing the line of thought left Daran perplexed. Mutely she regarded the commanding figure as though he were from another planet. “The keys?” he repeated, looking down on her as though
she
had temporarily lost her senses, which she had, she concluded silently, as her docile hand began a search of her bag for the large and heavy key ring.
“Your car,” the deep voice at her ear prodded. “Which one is it?” Simultaneously he spotted the very visible
RESERVED FOR DR. PATTERSON
sign and, within a minute, had removed the keys from her hand, unlocked the door, and gallantly seated her on the passenger side before appearing behind the wheel.
Suddenly the scene took on slapstick proportions, drawing a spontaneous fit of laughter from the hitherto sober Dr. Patterson. With the slam of the door beside him and a low oath as he groped beneath the seat for the lever to give himself more leg room, the distinguished senator from Connecticut turned to his passenger, sighing with relief as the seat finally slid back. “Now what in the devil is so funny?”
Barely suppressing further mirth, she angled sideways in her seat, back flush against the door. “This whole thing is absurd,” she began, tapered fingers splayed across her chest as she steadied her breathing. “I was prepared for a very formal discussion with a supposedly dignified legislator, and what do I get? I get spirited away like a thief in the night, in my own car, at my own expense, and—” She broke off as laughter erupted once more. “And you look so funny, crammed into this car like … like…”
“Go on,” the deep voice dared her. When she could not, he did so for her. “Like a clown at the circus.” As he scowled good-naturedly, she laughed again, pausing only so as not to miss a word of his rebuttal. “Let me tell you, lady, it’s a crime against those lovely long legs of yours to squish them up so close to the wheel. And although I like small cars myself, this Beetle is ridiculous. No wonder they stopped manufacturing them years ago. And—” he went on strongly, quite adept at speaking off the cuff, as his job must demand “—you may think it hilarious to be rushed around, dodging here and there, but if you had a face as easily recognized as this one, you’d do the same.”
The boyish intensity of his complaint, intoned in such a low and very masculine timbre, struck a sympathetic cord in Daran. Yet she could not resist one further dig. “I would have thought that you’d want every last bit of publicity; or is that only during an election year?” Wasn’t it the image? Wasn’t that how it had been with Bill? Her sober undertone instantly spread to the senator.
“This may come as a surprise to you, Dr. Patterson, but there is indeed a very private man somewhere deep down inside this outwardly public shell. And that very private man needs to let it all out, as they say, every once in a while. Without the press. Without his staff. Without a ubiquitous public looking over his shoulder.”
The atmosphere in the car suddenly grew heavy with the turn of the conversation. Guilt-ridden at having been as insensitive as she must have appeared, Daran stared for long moments at the steel-hard silver-edged gaze that speared her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I meant no harm.” The softness of her voice rang with sincerity; her own eyes echoed the apology. Feeling herself about to wither beneath his penetrating stare, she turned to look out the window. The fingers on her chin took her by surprise when they effortlessly tilted her face back to his.
Even before his eyes dropped to her lips, she felt the pull. It was an intangible force, rippling from man to woman and back, an invisible current, until the two pairs of lips were no more than a breath apart. With one hand on the back of the seat and another on the dashboard, he did not touch her, until gently, lightly, his lips whispered over the corners of her mouth, enticing a response by virtue of their very innocence. Aware only vaguely of what was happening, Daran fought to resist this powerful magnetism. But the mind was suddenly a thing apart from the body. With a helpless sigh her lips parted, to be met an instant later by the full force of a kiss which, in its soulful tenderness, robbed her of breath. When it ended and the awesome bond was finally broken, she recoiled belatedly, blotting the back of her hand against lips which continued to burn for long moments.
“I’m sorry.” Even with the two words spoken, the consummate politician was back to form. “I had no right to do that,” he went on, calmly, level-headed, obviously unmoved. “I know very little about you.”
In truth, it was her anger at his total composure that spawned Daran’s instant indignance. “You’re right. You do know very little about me. And you shouldn’t have done that.” As soon as the words were out, shame washed over her. She had invited his kiss; she had been every bit at fault as he. And she had enjoyed it. Damn it, she had! Perhaps that was what bothered her the most. For five years she had been immune to that type of physical response. For five years the very thought of a kiss such as that would have repulsed her. Was this some kind of fluke? Or was she once again vulnerable?
As though sensing the inner torment he had caused, Drew Charles deftly started the car. “Come on, let’s get something to eat. We’ve got only fifty minutes left.” The smile in his voice came through in his words and spread contagiously to her lips. With a shy glance his way, she nodded in acquiescence, then settled back in the car for the brief but silent ride to the restaurant.
Once again the absurdity of the situation nearly brought a disbelieving laugh to the surface. To be sitting in her worn-out VW with a United States senator at the wheel, in total silence, no less—it was remarkable.
“Yes, I do enjoy the silence,” he read her thoughts too easily for comfort, then drew the car easily alongside the curb in front of the small, secluded restaurant. It was as though those few moments of quiet in the car had served to ease the transition from spirited male to stately politician. For, once out of the car and inside the restaurant, the senator was every bit the senator, greeting friendly faced patrons and his personal friends, the owners of the intimate establishment, with a typically broad smile. Throughout their arrival, he was even-toned, suave, dignified, and impeccably behaved. Had it not been for a recurring vivid reminder at the quick of her pulse, Daran might have imagined that other, more impulsive side entirely. Not knowing quite what to expect now, she let him take the conversational lead when finally they had been shown to a quiet booth at the rear of the place and were seated. Drew ordered for them both; with unrivaled speed, his lamb and her Greek salad were before them. There were definite advantages to being a somebody, she mused silently as she tried to calculate exactly how much time remained of their allotted hour.