“See here, I invited you to supper!” she muttered.
“So you did.”
“I was going to treat you.”
He stopped to light a cigarette. He didn’t smoke much, only occasionally. But this was one time when he needed its relaxing effect.
“It wasn’t much of a meal,” he said, towering over her. “I shouldn’t have come down on you so hard,” he
admitted. “The job means a lot to me. I forget sometimes that other people might feel differently about it.”
“I like my job,” she protested. “Really, I do, I just hate being told how to dress and act.”
“All right. I’ll stop riding you. But you could play down the bangle bracelets and hanging earrings of Babylon, couldn’t you?”
She smiled. “I guess. If you’ll stop insinuating that I dress like a madam.”
“I’ve never done that,” he shot back. “Look, there’s a hell of a difference between describing the way you dress and the way you live,” he said irritably. He’d let that slip out. He shouldn’t have used the terminology, even if he did think she was promiscuous.
“You’re cursing.”
“Damn it!”
She grinned. He looked really ruffled. It delighted her to do that to him. She didn’t understand why, but she liked seeing him vulnerable. He so rarely was, and never with men or other women. Only with her.
His thin mouth flattened with frustrated anger. She made him want things he’d denied himself for years. She made him vulnerable. He could hate her for that.
If only he could get her out of his system!
He started walking, and she strolled along beside him. Amazing how safe she felt, she thought.
“I’ll try to reform. Really I will,” she promised.
“That would be nice.”
They were at her apartment house now. She didn’t want him to go. She wanted to find out about him, to get to know him. That was one reason she’d invited him out to eat, but all they’d done was argue.
“Thank you for supper,” she said graciously.
“My pleasure.”
“I can cook,” she added.
He didn’t speak. She was moving from side to side as she stared up at him, her body sensuous in its covering, her eyes flirting with his.
“Can you?” he asked after a minute. His voice sounded strained. It felt that way, too.
“You bought my supper tonight. Another time, I could make yours.”
He knew very little about women. But unless he missed his guess, that was a come-on. Why else would a woman invite him to her apartment alone at night? Sex was probably like an aperitif to her.
He considered how it would affect the job and decided that it might yet give him a wedge to use to get her out of the agency once and for all. He smiled with faint triumph as he thought about how the evening might end, and his body throbbed with anticipated delight.
“When?” he asked.
“Saturday,” she said. “Saturday night, about six. I could make Stroganoff, if you like it.”
“I like anything with beef,” he replied.
She felt her heart lift. He had to like her, or he wouldn’t have accepted. She grinned. “Saturday, then.”
He nodded.
She hesitated, thinking that he might come closer, he might kiss her. Her heart raced. But he only stood where he was as she started toward the steps, smoking his cigarette as casually as if he had all night.
“Good night,” she called.
“Goodnight.”
He walked back to his car without a backward glance. Mirri drew in a disappointed breath and went up to her apartment. She wondered if he was ever going to let her get close enough to find out anything about him that wasn’t job-related.
A
manda was on her lunch hour. She’d already spent forty-five minutes of it at her desk, reading the instruction manual for the copying machine. When she finished she called Lisa into her office and shut the door. Everyone else was out to lunch, but she didn’t want any returning part-timers to hear her.
“Have you ever read this thing?” she asked the girl.
Lisa shook her head. “There’s no time,” she began. “Ward does everything out of sequence. The correction lines are always messed up because I can’t read his scribbling, and there’s nobody to answer the phone except me.
”
“
It will change. Trust me. Suppose we try doing things just a little differently.”
Lisa’s eyes widened. “How?”
“First, I want to get Jenny to come in on Tuesdays after her morning classes in college, just to answer the telephone, take subscriptions and job press orders, and refuse ads that come in after the deadline. That will leave you free to write outlines and do correction lines and set copy uninterrupted. I want to teach Tim to use the copier the right way, so that we can start getting back some of those customers who are rushing off to San Antonio to get their printing done.”
“Does Mr. Johnson know about this?”
“He will. Ultimately, too, I’d like to send you out a
day or two a week to sell ads for
th
e paper and get new customers for the print shop.”
“But he’ll never agree!”
“Yes, he will. Trust me. Are you game, if I can convince him?”
Lisa’s whole face changed. “It’s what I’ve dreamed of doing!” she exclaimed. “Public relations. Sales. I took a couple of college courses in marketing, and
I
love meeting people. I’m not a very good typist,” she confessed, something Amanda knew but had tactfully not mentioned. “But Mr. Johnson would never let me do anything else, Tim’s so disgusted with the print shop that he’s ready to quit, too.”
“He can’t. I have plans for him as well,” Amanda mused. “We are going to turn this place around, if I can get some volunteers to work overtime and help me do it.”
“I’m all for it,” Lisa said. “What can I do?”
“Leave it to me,” Amanda replied thoughtfully. “It will take a little work, but I think I have a way figured out.”
S
he cornered Tim later that afternoon, when Ward had driven off to take the paper to the community press in San Antonio to be printed. The
Gazette
was set up for small print jobs, but it didn’t have the facilities or equipment to print its own paper. That had always been done elsewhere.
Amanda explained what she wanted to do, to upgrade the printing enterprise. Tim listened, his eyes growing brighter and bigger as she talked.
“Give me just a little time to get a plan of attack
organized,” she pleaded. “Don’t quit yet. You’re terrific at what you do. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Johnson said they’re going to close down the print
shop.”
“Josh Lawson hasn’t said we are,” she
replied. “Until he does, it’s got a chance. Tim, there’s some gossip about a throwaway being published. The print shop m
ight be our last hope to keep th
e doors open.”
“I’m not arguing with that,” he said. “But Mr. Johnson is not going to cooperate, and he has the last word. I’ve tried to steer him toward higher prices and better quality before. He’s only interested in news and newspaper. He’s been trying to kill off the job press ever since I came here five years ago.”
“He isn’t going to do it.” She grinned. “There are ways around any obstacle. Next week we’re going for broke, if you’re with me.”
“How can I refuse?” He chuckled. “I was ready to quit and go to work down at El Mercado selling straw hats. I’ve got nothing to lose.”
“A
ll
right,” she said. “We’ll see what we can do with this place before Mr. Johnson catches us.”
“Go for it,” he said, chuckling. “He can kill us, but he can’t eat us.”
Amanda thought the very same thing. She only hoped that she could pull off her implementation while Mr. Johnson’s thoughts were tangled up in his own personal life. If he got wind of her interference too soon, even Josh’s intervention might not save her job.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
T
he
loud knock on the door surprised Amanda. It wasn’t likely to be Mirri, and she never had other visitors.
She went to open the door, uncomfortably aware of her stained old jeans, which she wore to do housework, and the short-sleeved blouse with its laced front that really wasn’t appropriate for company. Perhaps it was just a salesman.
“Yes?” she asked automatically when she pulled the door open. But the word just hung there in midair, like her heart.
Josh looked worn. There were deep lines in his face, shadows under his dark eyes. He was wearing a charcoal- gray suit with a pristine white shirt and a red tie. He looked much too elegant for a casual visit.
“Hello,” she said jerkily. Remembering the way they’d parted on Opal Cay didn’t elicit an attitude of good fellowship.
He had one hand in his pocket. The other was holding a cigar, which he dropped and ground out under his heel.
“Am I going to be invited inside, or do you want to talk out here?” he asked quietly.
She could have refused to talk to him. But the past always spared him any continuing grudges on. her part. It was easy to remember how kind he had been to her when her father was still alive. That memory always defeated her when she tried to hate him.
“Come in,” she said, opening the door for him. “Do you want some coffee?”
“That would be nice,” he agreed. “I’ve been on the move for fourteen hours.”
“Business trip?” she asked as she led the way into her kitchen.
His broad shoulders rose and fell. “What else? I had to fly to California and back with delays everywhere.” He sat down at her small kitchen table. The cloth was white and ruffed, like the curtains at the windows. The room had yellow highlights and white appliances. It was bright and cheery.
“I like the way you decorate,” he remarked. “I haven’t been here since you moved in.”
“You haven’t been anywhere except to your office and other offices in a long time,” she remarked as she filled the automatic drip coffee maker and turned it on.
He traced the pattern of a leaf on the tablecloth. “No, I haven’t.”
She got down cups and saucers and filled a cream pitcher. She put that and the sugar bowl on the table, because he took his coffee black but she didn’t. She laid napkins and silver at two places. Then, strapped for anything else to do, she reluctantly sat down across from
him. Her heart was beating her half to death already, and he’d barely been in the house five minutes.
“Is this a friendly visit, or do you want to hear about the
Gazette?”
she asked.
He searched her face. He wasn’t the only one who was working hard. There were traces of fatigue there.
“Tell me about the
Gazette,
”
he said noncommittally.
“I’m going to make some minor changes that I hope your Mr. Johnson will be too preoccupied to notice,” she said, smiling faintly. “He’ll get around to it, and I’ll probably be in trouble. But I’m going to make that job press pay. If you close it down now,” she added, “you’ll lose money.”
“I haven’t made a decision to close it down,” he replied. His eyes fell to her hands, bare of jewelry, noticing their nervous clenching. He was just as unsettled by her, and trying not to show it. He hadn’t meant to come here. But he was lonely.
He leaned back, his face taut as he stared across the table at her. “Life doesn’t get any easier,” he remarked absently.
“I know what you mean.”
“Has Brad said anything to you about his finances?” he asked abruptly.
So that was why he was here. Her eyes fell. “I know about the gambling debt. But I can’t discuss Brad’s private business even with you. Whatever he tells me, I keep in confidence.”
“Fair enough,” he said. “But if he goes in headfirst, I’d like to know. You can tell him that.”
“He already knows it. He’s trying to take care of his
own liabilities, though. I tried to point him in the right direction
…
”
“What an interesting idea,” he said, annoyed that Brad had approached Amanda for advice. He didn’t like to think of Brad getting too close to Amanda. “You aren’t solvent yourself and you’re advising my brother?”
His question made her angry. She had had enough of his patronizing manner. She smiled coldly. “Well, he could always solve his problems and mine just by marrying me,” she said just to antagonize him. It worked, too. His face tautened to steely hardness. “I would inherit my share of the newspaper immediately, then I could loan him enough to bail him out,” she added, turning the knife.
Josh went dead inside. His face, livid with surprise and distaste, was naked for the first time in memory.
She was surprised by his expression. She’d only been joking. Why was he taking it so seriously? “Josh, I’m not going to marry Brad,” she said, forcing a laugh. “Why, he’s like a brother!”
He was all but vibrating with rage. It had never occurred to him, God knew why, that if he found Amanda attractive, Brad might, too. His womanizing brother and Amanda! Brad needed money, she had some, they were old friends, and she liked Brad. The thought, just the thought of it, drove him crazy. He couldn’t let that happen!
“Will you listen
…
Josh!”
He was on his feet beside her in seconds, and with one smooth motion he had her up in his arms and was carrying her toward the living room.
She didn’t fight. The action was such a shock that she
just lay against his chest trying to catch her breath. And then the familiarity of him began to work on her like a drug as she savored the warm strength of him against her.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“God knows.” He sat down on a big armchair with Amanda in his lap. His dark eyes slid over her face and shoulders, to the deep expanse of bane skin where die black laces held the bodice of her white blouse together. “I knew you’d been seeing Brad,” he said, his voice choked with anger. “I didn’t know things had gone that far.”
“They haven’t,” she assured him. She let out a long, weary breath, and her green eyes were as cynical as his had ever been.
He made a rough sound deep in his throat and pulled her into a warm, close embrace. He sat with his face in her hair, just holding her, for a long time. It was like coming home.
“Can’t you tell me what’s upsetting you?” she whispered at his ear.
“Not yet.” In that moment he wanted to tell her his deepest fear, but he couldn’t. Amanda didn’t deserve to shoulder that burden.
She smoothed his thick blond hair. He smelled of expensive cologne and clean cotton. She loved being held by him.
His cheek slid against hers, and he found her mouth with tender deliberation, parting it With his so that he could savor the delicate intimacy with his tongue.
He hadn't kissed her like this before. Not this deeply. She liked it. She loved it. Her mouth opened for him, and she shifted in his arms so that she could press her
hands under his jacket, against the warm, hard muscles of his chest through the thin shirt.
He lifted his head and looked down at her hands. Under them, his heart raced. His gaze shifted to her bodice, and his body began to stir.
With a long, resigned sigh, he reached out and began to unlace the blouse, his dark eyes almost apologetic as they searched hers.
If he was looking for a protest, he wasn’t going to find one. She lay with her lips parted, trembling a little. He’d never seen her without her blouse. Or touched her under it. They’d shared nothing more intimate than kisses. Until now.
“Is it because you’re missing Terri?” she asked in a whisper.
His hand didn’t still. He shook his head. “It’s because my eyes ache for you,” he said softly.
Her head rested against his broad shoulder. She watched his eyes, her body tensing as he drew the laces down and slowly, so slowly, pulled away the fabric that covered her high, tip-tilted breasts.
His breath expelled in a soft rush. He hadn’t known that she’d be so exquisite. Her nipples were dusky pink, very hard. The shape and firmness of her soft breasts awed him, aroused him.
He bent, hesitating only for a second before his mouth fastened with delicate tenderness over a hard nipple and worked its way down in a blistering silence to the firm, sweet skin below it. His big hands slid around her, faintly rough but very gentle on the bareness of her back, as he lifted her closer to his mouth and fed on her.
She heard the sound he made, a mingling of a harsh
groan and a grunt of pleasure. Her hands cradled his head and she closed her eyes, shivering with the heady newness of this sweet intimacy. She’d never imagined that it would feel like this to have his mouth on her skin. It was like sinking into heated velvet. Her whole body rippled with delight, and she tried to lift closer, to make it last. She moaned as the seductive tracing of his tongue and lips increased the tension explosively.
When the need was unbearable, he turned his cheek against her and enveloped her in his arms. There was a faint tremor in them, in his breathing. She felt it through her own aching quiver.
Time seemed to hang by a thread in the silence of die room. She was aware on some level of the sound of the coffee maker
whishing
as it finished its cycle, of cars far away on the highway. But closer, there was the hard, quick beat of her heart in Josh’s ear and the scent and feel of him. Years ago she hadn’t thought him capable of this kind of tenderne
ss. It seemed oddly contradictor
y for a confessed womanizer who kept pushing her away.
She said so, her voice unsteady above his head.
“Yes,” he whispered. “Isn’t it?”
She kissed his forehead, his closed eyes, with her heart in her lips. “Why did you come today, really?”
“I think you know.”
She was afraid to say what she suspected. Afraid that, like a secret dream, if she said it aloud, it would turn to
ashes.
He lifted his head and studied her rapt, abandoned face. Her cheeks were flushed. Her green eyes were soft and half-closed and misty with pleasure. Her mouth was red and swollen from his kisses.
He drew his hand softly over the curve of one firm breast, tracing the mark his hungry mouth had made just below the nipple. “Did I hurt you when I did this?”
She smiled. “I didn’t notice.” She arched a little, still in thrall to the addictive sensations he’d aroused. “Wouldn’t you like to do it again, so that I could tell if it hurts?”
He smiled back. He touched the hard tip, watching her eyes dilate. Gently he took it between his thumb and forefinger and caressed it. She made a sharp little sound in her throat, and hear lips parted.
“I know exact
l
y what reaction this causes in your body, and where,” he whispered. “I’d like to touch you there. But this has already gone too far. I want you badly, Amanda.”
She pulled his hand completely over the mounded flesh and pressed it to her, feeling the warmth of his palm cupping her. “I want you, too. Is that so terrible?”
“No. Between us, lovemaking would be beautiful,” he replied, “a soft, sweet joining that would be very addictive.” His fingers contracted tenderly. “And very wrong.”
“You sound like a theologian,” she whispered.
He smiled gently. “You’re virginal,” he whispered back. “In this, I’m hopelessly conservative. There are a few gentlemanly rules of conduct left that I still believe in.”
She sighed. “Good girls wait until they’re married,” she murmured.
“
Why is it t
hat only rakes feel that way?”
“Because we honor innocence,
having deprived the world of so much of it,” he teased. He moved his hand, enjoying the pleasure that came so readily to her eyes
when he caressed her. Her sadden moan aroused him deeply. He breathed out and covered her with his big, warm hand. “I don’t sleep,” he said quietly. “I don’t eat, I don’t function. All I do is remember how you looked when I sent you away. That’s why I came here today. I had to know that you were all right, that I hadn’t hurt you too much.”
“You didn’t mean anything you said that day, really, did you?” she asked.
He laughed faintly, bitterly. “What do you think?” He watched the progress of his own hand from her breast to her collarbone and her soft throat. His eyes lingered with quiet awe on the beauty of her breasts. “I’ll know what
I need to know by th
e end of next week,” he said enigmatically. His eyes lifted back to hers. “If I needed you, would you come?”
“What a silly question,” she murmured lovingly.
“Yes, wasn’t it?” He removed his hand. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, like this,” he said matter-of-factly. His eyes caught hers. “I’m sorry there was ever a woman at all, do you know that?”
She did. His eyes told her so. “I don’t know what’s wrong in your life,” she said. “But nothing would matter. Love doesn’t make conditions.”
He drew her blouse back together. “No. But sometimes it imposes them.”
He was frightening her. It was as if he had some terrible suspicion that he couldn’t, wouldn’t, share. He was withdrawing from her emotionally a
l
l over again. She had to do something to lessen the tension in him. “Is this all I get?” she asked suddenly.