Tucking her hands in the pockets of her gray dirndl-style skirt, Justine came to stand by his side. Her copper curls bobbed as she cocked her head in study. “I'm not quite sure. I keep looking into the trees expecting to see something. But it's never there. It's ⦠eerie.”
“Do you know the artist?” It was a signed original; his assumption was correct.
“I went to high school with him. We've kept in touch over the years. When I saw this, I knew I had to have it. For some reason, I find it riveting.”
Riveting.
A powerful word. A word that aptly described her reaction to Sloane. In the instant's recognition, she glanced up to find him studying her closely. Under his inspection her lips felt suddenly dry. Her tongue circled them as she took a breath.
“Are you ⦠sure I can't interest you in some coffee? A nightcap?”
His voice was a deep, velvet lure. “No. You'll do just fine all by yourself.”
Her mouth opened in protest, then closed with protest unspoken. Time, life, the worldâall seemed in suspension
as she assimilated the raw desire which filled Sloane's dark gaze. Once again his hair was like a halo; once again Justine knew that his thoughts were far from angelic.
The smoothness of his palm shaped her jaw, his fingers caressed the softness of her cheek. Her lips parted beneath the gentle nudging of his thumb, which circled them with infinite slowness and devastating effect. Her breath caught and held for one, everlasting moment of expectancy. Then, the telephone rang, shattering the mood with its shrill peal.
“Let it ring,” he murmured quietly.
Her eyes darted away from his. “IâI can't ⦔ With a move backward, she sidestepped his tall form and made for the kitchen, where the wall phone hung.
“Hello? ⦠Yes, Martha ⦠. No, that's all right ⦠. What? ⦠Oh, no ⦠. Why didn't you wait until
after
you'd checked that out with me? ⦠Of course, I understand ⦠. No, it just makes things more difficult. After all, we're trying to
negotiate
a settlement, not enforce one! ⦠Look, Martha, since there's nothing I can do tonight, why don't we talk in the morning, after I've had a chance to speak to your husband's attorney? ⦠Fine ⦠. Yes, I know, Martha ⦠. Good-bye.”
Replacing the receiver, she leaned forward, steadying her breathing, assuming herself to be unobserved. When Sloane's lean figure entered her line of sight, she looked up, startled. “Iâ” she began, only to be cut off by the hands which took her shoulders and hauled her against him, by the lips which clamped down upon hers as though he were taking no further chance of interruption until this particular matter of business had been dealt with.
The dealing was mind-boggling. His initial force gave way to a tenderness which commanded response from Justine as surely as if she had initiated the kiss. After a first moment of shock, she returned everything he gave, then reeled at the havoc of ecstasy his manliness inspired.
Bursts of excitement rippled through her body when his hands began to wander with agonizing precision over every swell and hollow of her supple form. She clung to him, a castaway, struggling simply to keep her head above water.
“God, Justine,” he rasped when he released her mouth to kiss her eyes, her cheeks, the soft lobe of her ear.
The thought of resistance was anathema to her, her vows of abstinence forgotten. In Sloane's hands she was all woman. She'd never felt as sensually aroused in her entire life. The sensations were new and consuming, demanding more and more as they grew stronger.
Beneath her fingers, his muscles tensed. His back was broad and strong, his waist lean in turn. The hardness of his body stirred greater potions through her veins, driving her to sure madness if the coiled tension within were not somehow released.
Slowly Sloane pulled his head up and away, looking down at her, asking the question she asked herself, softly voicing it for eternity. “Justine, should I stay ⦠?”
They had reached the fork in the road, a fork that she had sensed was inevitable from the start. Confusion whipped a ravaged path across her features, slowly, slowly yielding to denial. She'd lived her life based on solid conviction for so long. Now she couldn't possibly ignore those beliefs for one brief brush with pleasure. Her eyes were sad as she shook her head. “Not tonight, Sloane. Not ⦠tonight ⦠.”
To her total bewilderment a broad smile lit up Sloane's face. “That's good. Very good.”
Justine regarded him as though he were deranged. Her nose wrinkled up as she questioned him. “What do you meanââthat's good'? Most men would be furious!”
“But I'm not âmost men' and I don't like the idea of your hopping into bed with a manâany manâyou've only known for little over a day.” His grin was brilliant.
“You may be a very passionate red-headed vixen, but you have restored my faith in the morality of women!”
A slow anger began to rise, overshadowing the desire which had moments earlier captivated Justine. “You tested me.”
“You might say that.”
With a vigorous shove, she pushed him away and stormed into the living room. “I think you'd better leave now,” she called loudly over her shoulder, pacing to the fireplace and planting herself there, arms crossed over her chest, with her back to the room. She didn't hear his approach, merely felt the warm length of his arm slip around her middle and fit snugly beneath her breasts as he drew her back against him once more. Dismay filled her at the involuntary swell of her breasts, the instinctive trembling of her insides. Yet she couldn't get herself to pull away.
“Don't be angry,” he crooned against her curls, his body long against her. “I would have been glad to stay. God only knows I'll have enough trouble trying to sleep. But there's more to life than lust, isn't there?” He paused, then squeezed her. “Well, isn't there? Would you rather I was a forceful rogue, taking whatever I could get, then walking out? Hmmmm?”
She shook her head in misery, racked by a mix of frustration and mortification. Of course, he was right! Her resentment was uncalled-for.
“There,” he declared softly. “One other thing we agree on. And, when the time is right, we'll agree on everything.” His emphasis on the last word startled her even more than his expression of the entire thought.
He
implied a future to their relationshipâ
she
had not gone that far. “Now.” He loosened his hold and turned her around, keeping her well within the circle of his arms. She had to tilt her head up to face him, yet his height was strangely comforting. His nearness sharpened her senses anew,
thrilling her with its aura of masculinity. “I have to go home to Atlanta for the weekendâto see my parents and tie up a few loose ends. From there I'm off to Tucson for a week or soâa small matter regarding an irrigation proposal. Shall I see you when I get back?”
Justine was surprised at the question, given his tone of total self-assurance. Reluctant to give him the satisfaction of an eager acceptance of his very open-ended suggestion, she shrugged, feigning indifference. “Perhaps.” The feel of his thighs, muscled and strong, lingered as he stepped away.
“You'll wait for me?”
“âWait'?”
There was a devilish slant to the upward lift of his eyebrow. “You won't go and take up with the first man who comes along?”
“Don't be absurdâis this another one of your little tests?” She followed his progress to the door through eyes narrowed in suspicion.
His laugh was hearty. “Could be, Justine. Could be.” Then he sobered. “Good night. And, Justine?” The door was open by his hand; his eyes captured her. “Take care of yourself, will you?”
Unable to muster a response amid the eddy of emotion, she could only look on in astonishment as he reinforced the request with a visual command, then closed the door quietly behind him.
Justine sighed her bewilderment. “Good night, Sloane,” she whispered at last into the silence.
Fate, however, conspired to keep Sloane out of the state for nearly three weeks, giving Justine ample time for soul-searching. Where, precisely, was their apparently mutual attraction to lead? No man had ever inspired such thoughts in her; in the past, there had always been a definite cutoff point beyond which she had simply refused to go. As she had told Sloane, she set her terms and stood by them. Now, however, she found herself rethinking those terms. If she had been drawn inexorably toward Sloane in person, his magnetism in absentia was no less awesome. He was ever on her mind.
One by one she set up obstacles against the possibility of involvement with him; one by one they crumbled. He was a client and, as such, off limits romanticallyâyet he wasn't her client, thereby lifting that professional restriction. He was a man of the world with, perhaps, a woman in every portâyet he was, by all indications, available and interested in Justine. He was a traveler by choice, off and away as he was right nowâyet his home was New York, her own for the past eight years.
In the end one thing was crystal clear. Though the power he wielded over her senses threatened long-standing principles which had shaped her life, she could no more reject his suit, should he choose to pursue it, than she could deny the passion he had awakened within her. She was a woman. Never before had she realized that simple truth so clearly.
As the days passed and the rain-spattered streets of April dried beneath the warm May sun, she was mercifully busy. Her practice seemed to blossom in harmony with those other buds of springâthe lime-hued maples overhanging
Fifth Avenue, the pale pink dogwoods in Central Park, the red-knobbed geraniums in their streetside window boxes.
There were clients aplenty and their related court appearances. There were in-office conferences, on-location conferences, and conferences over lunch. There were lectures to plan, research, and deliver. And, there was a victory to celebrate.
“Congratulations, Justine!” exclaimed her friend and fellow law school graduate Sheila, hugging Justine warmly as she arrived, nearly breathless, at the Russian Tea Room for their monthly gastronomical adventure.
Tall and willowy Andrea joined in buoyantly, “We knew you could do it!”
“Another small step for womankind!” The last was from Liz, blond-haired, freckle-faced Liz, and was delivered with a clenched fist in the air, as the four young women settled down at their appointed table.
“That was quite an alimony awardâbased on
back wages
, no less!” Sheila bubbled. “The idea that a woman has a right to collect for services rendered over the years of marriage is brilliantâparticularly in this case, where the husband was holding out on her all those years! Imagineâkeeping his wife in the dark about a million dollars' worth of investmentsâand splurging the profits behind her back! I'm green with envy at the ingenuity of your argument!”
Justine's modesty brought a look of near guilt to her face. “Come on, Sheila. It was no more ingenious than some of those real estate contracts you've negotiated. Perhaps more dramaticâ”
“What's
really
amazing,” Liz interjected with obvious pleasure, “is that you've finally gone in for the dramatic at this late stage, Justine. When we were at Sarah Lawrence, you were the most conservative of the three of us!” She and Andrea laughed in easy conspiracy.
Justine had roomed with Liz and Andrea during her last two years of college; she had met Sheila at Columbia Law, where they had become close friends. The foursome met once a month to treat themselves to dinner at a preselected restaurant. Over the years they had sampled the exotic and the simple, the foreign and the American, the outstanding and the mediocre of New York's myriad of offerings. Some, such as the Russian Tea Room, they returned to repeatedly.
“You're right about that, Liz. I was pretty conservative,” Justine admitted with a smile. “As I recall, I studied all the time.
Period
. I must have been pretâty boâring ⦠.” She drew the last words out in singsong fashion, evincing laughing agreement from the others.
It was Andrea, however innocently, who expressed the poignant truth. “Well, you're certainly making up for it now!”
Indeed, she
was
making up for lost time, if all her wayward thoughts were to be counted. For Sloane had become a fixture in those thoughts, the symbol of a sensual excitement she had never known before. She thought of him constantly.
When at work in her office, one eye was alert to any movement at the door, half-expecting him to magically pop up there. When at home, she looked to the phoneâhoping, waiting, suffering with each false alarm. The spring-bright streets of New York took on an even gayer glow through the rose-colored glasses of her mind's romanticism. And, at nightâat home, alone, tossing in bed, restless and strangely unfulfilledâshe thought of him, wishing him back, imagining his presence, fantasizing with abandon and delight.
Given the prolonged length of his absence, Justine might very well have begun to suspect the excitement to be all in her own imaginationâhad it not been for intermittent reminders Sloane himself sent. At the end of the
first week there was a bright red tin Band-Aid box, filled to the top with jelly beans and wrapped around with a gay red-and-white checked ribbon. It had been delivered to the office and bore a note that was short but sweet as were its contents.
“Cravings are something else entirely. Remember, one a day ⦠Sloane.”
⦠Keeps the doctor away, she thought grinning, following his line of thought easily. But cravings ⦠yes, they were another matter entirely. And though she would certainly enjoy every one of the jelly beans he sent, her immediate craving was not for sweets!
Then there was the bottle of vintage Chablis just before the start of the second weekend. “To share with Susan, and Susan
only.
My thoughts are with you. Sloane.” It was a lovely gesture, she mused, hugging the bottle to her. A sad substitute, however, for the real, live, tall and silver-haired man!
With no idea as to when he would return, Justine grew uneasy.
Had
her interest been misplaced? Then came the rose. A single, brandy-tinted blossom, its shade matched her hair to perfection. “A breath of springtime. Mine will have to wait until I see you again. Sloane.”
Mercifully, the flower had been delivered to her apartment. It was Sunday, more than two weeks since she'd seen him last. Tears welled in her eyes at the thoughtâ
his
thoughtâand she made no effort to contain their flow. Since Susan knew about Sloane, there was nothing to hide. At work, however, tears might have been a distinct problem. There were clients to control and colleagues to confront. There was an image of distinction and efficiency to uphold. And, of course, there were the sharp, sharp eyes of one John Doucette to dodge.
“He's on the prowl, moving in, isn't he, Justine?” At that moment, John's blue eyes focused on the tin of jelly beans atop her desk.
“
He
happens to be a very respectful manâand knows when to
leave a woman alone.
” Her hint sailed right over the head of her persistent colleague, yet her smug smile was duly noted. From Justine's point of view, it made no sense to continue to denyâeither to herself or to othersâthe presence of a special kind of awareness between Sloane and herself. She volunteered no information, however, forcing John, in this case, to either ask his questions directly or draw his own conclusions.
“I checked in my little manual,” he began factually, “and discovered several interesting points.”
“What manual?” She looked up from her paperwork long enough to betray her interest.
“I was into hunting at one point there. Several of my friends and I used to spend weekends in season hunting upstate. The fox is an intriguing animal.”
Justine leaned back to listen with enjoyment to his latest. “Is that so?” she drawled comfortably.
“Uh-huh. For instance, he maintains territorial exclusivity; he claims an area as his own, then keeps all other foxes off the premises. However, he has been known to travel long distances in search of prey. Where did you say Sloane was?”
The aptness of John's analogy brought a knowing grin to her lips. “I didn'tâbut he is, I believe, in Arizona.”
“Yes, I would call that a long distance from here.”
“What else?” Despite her initial resistance, Justine now found great amusement in his chatter.
“Ah, let me see. His keenest sense is that of smell, and”âhe feigned concentrationâ“the female fox is called his vixen.”
Vixen.
Hadn't Sloane himself called her that? Could it be that he was aware of the appellation which his thick, silver thatch inspired? Was he subtly mocking itâor her?
“Justine ⦠Justine ⦠are you still here?” John's voice called her from her reverie.
“Yâyes. I was just ⦠thinking about something else ⦠.” she fibbed, frowning, then forcing herself to brighten up once more. “Sorry, I just remembered a call I was supposed to make.”
This time John did take the hint, taking his leave of her with a salute. Alone once more she lapsed into deep thought on this most perplexing, most exhilarating topic. But her thoughts had nowhere else to go. If it was the nature of her relationship with Sloane Harper which puzzled her, only his return would straighten things out.
The fifteenth of May came and went with no sign of Sloane. It was four days after that, on Thursday morning, when she least expected it, that she finally saw him. Court had just adjourned for a lunch recess. Justine stood at the plaintiff's table, gathered her papers together, and deposited them in her briefcase, then lent a cursory glance toward her navy linen skirt and beige cotton blouse, both tailored to skim her slender lines and brought together as a set by the lightweight woven vest of blues, creams, and browns which swung freely to the top of her hips. She had chosen her outfit for the day with great care. This particular case, a custody hearing with the opposing attorney a distinctly macho man, called for a certain degree of femininityâenough to cleverly understate the force of the attorney-in-skirts, who might then be able to creep in even closer before lunging. Perhaps, she laughed to herself, there was a bit of the fox in everyone.
Turning, she made her way to the courtroom door then looked up and froze. Sloane stood there, tall and straight, striking in a dark gray suit and crisp white shirt, his silver hair falling gently across his forehead. His eyes sparkled, yet the lines around his mouth spoke of fatigue.
The last of the other people stepped past her and left the room before Justine could find the strength to speak. It had been a long three weeks of wild imaginings, all of
which might very well be strewn to the winds of farce within the next few moments.
It was finally Sloane who moved, slowly approaching her as his eyes held hers with the command she remembered from that very first day. “Is there somewhere we can go for a minute?” he murmured softly, his expression held in taut and puzzling control.
Her heart hovered in her throat. “Uh, yes. A conference room. Down the hall.” Without further word she led him there, dying a bit with each footstep. The waiting had been frustrating but so lovelyâthinking that the end would be pure rapture. Was
this
what it had come to? Strangers?
The room she led him to was small and drab, a far cry from the plush and spacious conference room at Ivy, Gates and Logan. Barred windows conspired to keep the beauty of springtime on the far outside. Even the spartan table and chairs held a somberness. As she turned to face him, Sloane closed the door. For a breath-stopping moment he studied her, searching her face for something known only to him. Then, he smiled in what she could only term sheer relief.
“Come over here.” He cocked his head jauntily and held out his arms. It was all the invitation she needed. Smooth steps brought her into the embrace which her own arms slid inside his jacket to complete. It was all hereâthe warmth and the caring she feared she might have imagined. Words were unnecessary. There was only the tightening of his arms as she was crushed fiercely against him, full witness to the thunderous beat of his heart.
She could have stood this way forever, had it not been for the flame of desire which would not stay banked for long. His hold of her slackened just enough to permit the upward tilt of her face. Then he kissed her. His lips closed hungrily over hers, satisfying that initial need before growing more measured. She welcomed his tongue with the
seductive thrust of her own, abandoning herself to the spiraling rise of passion.
Totally breathless, she was finally released when Sloane held her back to bathe her features in the light of his gaze. “You look wonderful!” he exclaimed softly and with obvious bias.
A wavering line of worry broke beneath the copper curls on her forehead. “
You
look tired. Was it a bad trip?”
“It was much, much too long. Knowing
you
were
here
was as much an agony as it was a solace!”