And just as naked.
C
ATHERINE SAT
on the edge of a worn corduroy recliner and cocked her ear toward the hallway. Fortunately the walls were thin.
“Dammit, Norman,” Joe bellowed from the bedroom. “This is a family apartment complex. Next
time you open the drapes, at least have the decency to wear a trench coat!”
“Mumble, mumble, Doris mumble.”
“I don’t care if she made you wear a friggin’ tuxedo in the bathtub, that doesn’t give you the right to parade around
here
buck naked. From now on, take your shower sooner. Like before dawn.”
“Mumble, mumble.”
“Then why aren’t you—Aw jeez, Norman, you’ve been like that since seven? Allie and I have to sit on this furniture when you leave!”
“Doris mumble, mumble, Doris mumble, mumble, mumble.”
“So call her up. Tell her you’re a miserable naked slob without her. But first come out and apologize to Catherine—No, no, not like
that.
Have some dignity, man.” A door opened. “When you leave this bedroom there’d better not be any skin showing except on that thick skull of yours,” Joe warned, his voice louder without the muffling effect of walls.
Slam!
Flinching, Catherine grabbed a magazine from the rack by her chair and whipped it open onto her lap. Seconds later Joe stalked into the den.
“God,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Sorry you had to hear that.”
“Hear what?”
His expression said,
Gimme a break.
“No, really, I was so interested in this article I didn’t hear a thing.”
He moved closer and peered down. “I see what you mean. Can I read that when you’re finished?”
She followed his gaze and felt her facial muscles freeze. The only print visible on the lurid photo spread listed Miss Candy Cane’s Top Ten Turn-ons.
Catherine slapped the magazine shut and crammed it back into the rack, her face heating at the sound of Joe’s rich baritone laugh. She glared at his pointing finger and he laughed harder—wonderful full-bodied whoops—then plopped down on the arm of her chair as if his legs wouldn’t support him.
“Your mouth,” he managed finally, gripping the recliner headrest with one hand and nudging her arm with the other. “It’s all shriveled up. Like you just sucked on a lemon.” A fresh burst of laughter trailed over her head.
Unaccountably hurt, she went on the offensive. “You should be ashamed of yourself, Joe Tucker, leaving that smut lying around where Allie can find it.”
Sobering, he wiped the last trace of moisture and twinkle from his eyes. “Excuse me, Miss Holier-than-Thou, but that must be Norman’s magazine, ‘cause it sure as hell ain’t mine. And as for Allie finding ‘that smut,’ I’d a whole lot rather she look at pictures of a normal naked woman than at one of Doreen’s sicko paintings you call art.”
He had an excellent point, damn him. She sniffed and folded her hands in her lap. “Your idea of a normal naked woman is exactly why unnecessary elective surgery and eating disorders are so prevalent today.”
“Oh, bite me, Catherine.” He sounded more weary than angry.
“I would, but my mouth is too shriveled to do enough damage.”
His surprised chuckle rumbled near her ear. “If only I’d had a camera.”
Staring at her clasped hands, she felt a smile tug at her lips. “I’m surprised you noticed my mouth at all with Miss Candy Cane staring up at you.”
“Who, the model in the magazine?”
“Do you know a lot of women named Candy Cane?”
“Let’s just say I know the type. Great bodies, little-girl pouts, graduates of How to Be Sexy 101. Trust me, your face is much more interesting.”
“I’d rather be sexy.”
It took a moment for Catherine to realize she’d spoken the thought out loud. Horrified, she scrambled to stand up. A heavy male hand pushed down firmly on her shoulder.
“You are sexy.”
Her gaze snapped up. If he was making fun of her, she couldn’t tell from his serious brown eyes. She smiled a perfunctory thank-you, patted his hand once and started to rise for the second time.
He pushed her back down again. “You are sexy,” he repeated. “Hasn’t Carl told you that?”
She stared at her sensible navy shoes peeking from beneath her sensible navy slacks—embarrassed for herself, for Carl, for this basically kind man who had the instincts of a gentleman, if not the polish.
“Why would he lie?” she asked softly.
Warm fingers cupped her chin and lifted. His brows formed a bank of dark thunderclouds. “Pretty Boy is a jerk.”
“Don’t say that. He’s been totally honest with me since we met. I don’t need for him to tell me
I’m…sexy.” She willed herself not to blush and failed. “I wouldn’t believe him if he did.”
The anger died in Joe’s steady gaze. “Then believe me.”
She yearned to, with a plain woman’s fierce passion. “I can’t, Joe. You said yourself you’re a realist.”
Instead of releasing her chin and letting them both escape, he grinned. The same slow “I like what I see and I know what to do with it” grin he’d bestowed on that disapproving socialite in the art gallery.
No wonder the woman had puddled at his feet.
“Damn right I’m a realist. And the honest fact is there’s not a woman on this planet who isn’t sexy in some way. Could be her smile. Or the curve of her hip. Or maybe just the way she moves her hands. Hell, I had a sixty-year-old English teacher in high school who could’ve worked for a 900 phone service her voice was so hot.”
His thumb rubbed lazy circles on Catherine’s skin, wreaking havoc with her pulse.
“I wasn’t lying to you, doll. But I can see I’ll have to convince you better. Now, where should I start?”
“By letting go of my chin.” Her voice came out husky and weak, not at all like her own.
“Uh-uh. We’re in the middle of a lesson here, Teach.” He tipped her face this way and that as if studying one of her Mardi Gras masks.
She felt poised on the brink of discovery. Excited and scared. Trapped in his gentle grip, she was free to examine him openly at close range.
Her gaze roved over the aggressive square jaw, the bumpy ridge of his nose, the shaggy dark hair, thick brows and hard planes of his cheeks. Not handsome
by sophisticated standards, but uncompromisingly masculine. Sexy in a way no Pretty Boy could match.
Her mind jerked guiltily.
“You ever been to Colorado in the summer?”
She struggled to switch gears. Fortunately he didn’t wait for her reply.
“Once during a three-game series in Denver, I skipped practice and headed for the mountains. Smelling that air, hiking those trails until sunset was worth getting fined when I got back.” His faraway expression cleared.
Her breath caught and hung suspended. She couldn’t look away from his hypnotic dark gaze.
“Your eyes, Catherine, remind me of aspen leaves in the sun—all shivery green and full of sass. They look at a man and cut right through the bull. Mysterious, I guess you’d call ‘em.” His tone grew intimate. “And sexy.”
When his fingers splayed up from her chin onto her cheek, her breath made up for lost time, growing shallow and fast.
“Your skin reminds me of Snow White’s,” he crooned in that whisper-in-the-dark voice. “I had a crush on her as a little kid. Guess she ruined me for women who fry themselves on beaches and in tanning booths.” He brushed her cheek lightly with the backs of his knuckles, then the pads of his fingers, as if she were fragile and precious. “Your skin is like white satin. Soft. Smooth.” He traced a path down to her neck. “Sexy.”
Catherine sat spellbound, no more able to resist his entrancing words than a child could resist a fairy tale. At the first touch on her throat, she tilted her head back.
“Ah, yes,” he said on a masculine sigh, enclosing her throat from ear to ear. “Your neck, Catherine…”
The sound Joe made in his chest sent spirals of heat to places long dormant in her body. She waited, her pulse a frantic staccato throb beneath his fingertips.
When he removed his hand from her throat, she trapped a moan of disappointment.
When his mouth replaced his hand, she released a moan of pleasure.
He smiled against her skin and nuzzled deep, his raspy beard a welcome irritation. Her eyes closed as his teeth nipped gently, the pressure exquisite and knowing. He soothed his bites with a warm wet tongue, heightening the moist heat between her legs.
She turned her head slowly as he basted and scorched his way across her neck. Her affectionstarved soul absorbed the sensations thirstily. More alive than ever before in her life, she reached up and threaded her fingers through his thick hair.
”Catherine,” he murmured.
“Joe,” she whispered.
“Holy Moses!” a voice exclaimed.
Her eyelids popped open. She pulled back at the same time Joe jerked upright. They both blinked at the bald man with twinkling blue eyes who stood watching them from the hallway. As instructed, Norman had covered most of his pink skin with a longsleeved shirt and trousers.
“Sorry to interrupt,” he said, sounding anything but sorry. “You kind of caught me by surprise.”
His timely appearance had been a blessing, Catherine assured, herself, for reasons too complicated to
sort out now. Although the image of Carl’s face was pretty darn clear in her confused mind.
Since Joe still seemed a bit shell-shocked, she smoothed her slacks, rose shakily from the chair and hoped her neck didn’t look as ravaged as it felt.
“You must be Norman,” she said, walking forward and extending her palm.
The older man met her halfway and shook her hand. “And you must be the shrink. Sorry, but Joe didn’t mention your name.”
“Catherine,” she offered dryly, the last remnant of fantasy wearing off. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. How are you enjoying your sabbatical?”
His round face crumpled like a fallen soufflé. “I miss my wife.”
She hid her rush of sympathy behind a no-nonsense look. “Then what are you doing here in Houston, instead of Dallas where you can tell her in person?”
He ran stubby fingers over his shiny dome—a habit from more bountiful days, she suspected—then dropped his arm in defeat.
“Doris doesn’t want to see or talk to me. She kicked me out of the house and changed the locks.” His gaze met hers, his blue eyes stark with misery. “She’s filing for divorce as soon as our lawyer gets back from Hawaii, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Do you love her, Norman?”
One hand slowly rose to twist the ring on his left finger. “I never knew how much.”
“Then the first thing to do is pretend I’m Doris.” She smiled gently, took his arm and led him to the dinette table. “I’ll make us some coffee. We’ll sit. You can tell Doris how you feel and maybe get a
handle on what went wrong. We’ll figure out where to go from there. How about it?”
A spark of hope lit in his eyes, filling her with satisfaction and a strong sense of purpose.
When the front door opened and closed, neither one of them paid attention.
F
IFTY MILES AWAY
Mary Lou dressed carefully for the man who’d crept into her heart and refused to leave. Tonight couldn’t get here soon enough. All she had to do was get through this day, she reminded herself. Then all her longings would be over.
She backed away from her full-length reflection and grimaced. Desperate circumstances called for desperate measures.
Her grubby sneakers, frayed jeans and long-tailed denim shirt with grease stains trailing down the front were the oldest clothes she owned. Reaching for her battered straw fishing hat, she crammed it low on her head. Perfect. With her thick black braid trailing halfway down her back and virtually no makeup helping her cheat, she looked as different from the woman John had taken to dinner six nights ago as she could manage.
Shutting her closet door, she headed for the small apartment kitchen and packed an ice chest with Diet Cokes—John’s favorite. He drank too many, he’d admitted once. Today he’d be forced to try the caffeine-free variety.
Two loud knocks made her heart surge.
Just get through this day.
She repeated her mantra silently as she walked to the door and pulled it open.
“Hi there.” John’s gaze traveled from the crown of her ratty hat to the hole in her sneaker toe, obvious delight warming his brown eyes. “You look adorable.”
Her insides melted. God, this was going to be hard. “I look like Apple Annie and you know it, but thanks. Would you mind carrying an ice chest to the car for me?”
“Of course not.”
“It’s in the kitchen.” She stepped aside and he swept past, smelling of breezy cologne and looking virile in khaki shorts, navy crewneck shirt and canvas boat shoes.
With a brief but interested glance around her neat apartment—she’d met him at the restaurant the other night—he hefted the chest and turned back around. She tried not to stare at his bunched biceps and flat belly as he crossed the threshold, but he was an exceptionally handsome man in the prime of his life, and she was human. Her gaze fed hungrily on his lean body all the way to the Jaguar.
Once inside, he faced her with a smile. “Okay, how do I get there?”
Two days ago she’d come up with the plan to invite him along on her monthly trek to the old Denton homestead a short drive from town. She rattled off directions now and sank into butter-soft leather with a defeated sigh.
Ironically John was in high spirits. “This would be a great day to be out on the lake. Hot. Sunny. Good stiff breeze. Do you like to sail?”
“I’ve never been sailing.”
“Then you haven’t lived. There’s nothing more exhilarating in the world than skimming over the water
with the wind in your face. I keep a catamaran at Lake Conroe.” “How nice for you.”
His hands on the wheel tightened, then relaxed. “Yes, it is. I take her out every chance I get, which isn’t often enough. Maybe on your next day off we could drive up together.”
Idle talk, as if they had a lifetime of adventures ahead of them, instead of only two-hour business meetings once a month.
If
he didn’t fire her, that is.
“It’s not that far,” he continued as if she’d responded. “A bottle of wine, a beautiful sunset and you on my boat—” he heaved an exaggerated sigh “—I’d be one happy man.”
The knife in her heart twisted. “Stop.”
His startled glance turned grim. “Stop what?”
Her misery and pent-up frustration spilled out.
“This fantasy. These invitations. Why are you pursuing me, John? Boredom, defiance of convention—why?” She turned her head.
“Do you really think so little of me?”
Impossible as it seemed, he sounded wounded. She bit back her passionate protest and felt his probing gaze.
“My God, you doubt yourself, don’t you? But that’s ridiculous. I’ve been looking all my life for a woman like you.”
She rolled her eyes. “Now
that’s
ridiculous.”
“Dammit, Mary Lou, you’re being the worst kind of reverse snob! My wife cared more about how many times she made the best-dressed list than she did about me. That’s what money and social standing can do to ordinary human beings.”
As if she didn’t know exactly. She would’ve laughed if her vocal cords had been functioning.
His knuckles whitened on the wheel. “If it hadn’t been for my daughter, I would’ve bailed out long ago. Maria would’ve fought me for custody out of pure spite, and I couldn’t put Beth through that.”
What would he think about a mother who hadn’t seen her daughter in thirty years? The answer had her shifting on the leather seat.
“But what about later?” Mary Lou managed. “Say, when Beth was in high school.”
“By that time I was married to my business concerns. Beth was the one who talked me into getting a divorce, actually. When she left for college, she wanted to know that I had a chance for happiness, that I wouldn’t bury myself even deeper in work than I had before. So I asked her mother for my freedom and paid a considerable fortune to gain it.” His tanned jaw clenched once. Twice.
She waited, knowing there was more.
“Let me tell you something about freedom, Mary Lou. The media are full of statistics about the unbalanced ratio of single women to eligible men. But no one ever talks about the pit-bull aggressiveness of these same poor women in pursuit of a financially successful man.
“I went from flattered to disgusted within two months. The thing was, nothing I said or did seemed to affect their attitude. Nice or not, as long as I could still offer security I was a valuable commodity. It really shook my self-confidence.”
John Chandler, insecure? But he had the world at his feet.
He cast her a hooded look. “And then I bought a struggling truck-stop business and hired a beautiful completely disinterested woman to manage it for me.”
Her traitorous heart soared. She forced herself to look away so she could think straight. “I was a challenge to you after those other women, that’s all.”
“No, you were a breath of fresh air. Warm. Unpretentious. Listening to me—really listening—as if I were a man, instead of a bank account. You honestly didn’t seem impressed with my money or anything beyond how I treated you and the staff.”
She didn’t know what to say. Fortunately something about the landscape penetrated her dazed thoughts. “The county road to my place is coming up,” she warned.
John slowed the car, then turned right at her direction. A red dirt road ribboned ahead, bounded on both sides by a barbed-wire fence and rolling green fields dotted with live oaks.
“It’s beautiful land, Mary Lou.”
“Yes.” But it wasn’t hers. She dreaded the moment he saw the Denton homestead.
John drove slowly down the unpaved road, the Jaguar’s tires kicking up red clouds of dust and quartz gravel. Something thunked on the car’s low underbelly and made him wince.
“We should’ve taken my car,” Mary Lou said on a moan.
The fact that he didn’t argue increased her misery. Three miles and nine flinches later, a sagging aluminum gate appeared on the right.
“Slow down—that’s the entrance. Wait a minute and I’ll unlock the gate.”
Wondering why she’d ever thought this was a good idea, she was out of the Jaguar before it stopped rolling. The bicycle chain and padlock should clue him in that security wasn’t too critical. She set the combination to Catherine’s birth date, numbers Mary Lou would never forget, then unwrapped the chain and opened the gate.
Hopping back into the car, she pointed at two ruts in the parched yellow grass leading up a hill to a stand of oaks. “That’ll take us to the house. I’ve cleared the broken beer bottles and such as best I could. But stay in the ruts to be safe.”
To his credit, he didn’t hesitate to drive onward. She stared dully out the window at the passing scrub brush, prickly pear and trash trees choking out whatever grass had once survived. Her daddy used to make a token effort to clear the acreage during his infrequent dry spells. But with both her parents dead going on seven years, nature had a stranglehold on the land that Mary Lou had neither the time nor money to fight.
The Jaguar jounced through the ruts, topped the hill and stopped. A cluster of live oaks spread majestic branches over the weather-beaten shack she’d lived in for eighteen years.
“Welcome to the Denton homestead,” she said woodenly.
Unable to bear his silence, she got out of the car and walked toward the sagging front porch. Mr. Jenkins at the hardware store had given Mama six gallons of paint when Mary Lou was about ten. Someone hadn’t liked the color once it was mixed up. Mary Lou had thought it was beautiful.
She stopped and studied the aqua blue dandruff speckling the silver wood. The tin roof had long since rusted through in patches. Every windowpane had been used for target practice by kids sighting in their rifles. To the right of the house, set back a discreet distance, a small structure leaned on the verge of collapse.
Footsteps crunched behind her and she hugged her stomach. “Until I started school, I thought everyone had an outhouse. The teacher had to show me how to flush the toilet and use the faucets. Her face…” Mary Lou would never forget the mingled pity and morbid fascination on that woman’s face. It was an expression she saw often in the following years. “Her face made me feel ashamed, and I didn’t know why. But I learned soon enough that I was white trash.”
Turning, she looked up into John’s grave eyes. “It was worse when I found out Daddy had sold off a farmhouse and nine hundred acres chunk by chunk to buy his booze. Mama finally put her foot down when all that was left was this old sharecropper’s shack. That was before she gave up and started drinking, too.”
“Poor baby…”
“That’s right, I was poor—dirt poor—but I was smart, too. I studied the way people talked and ate and dressed, and copied the things I thought would make me fit in. By the time I got to high school, my drama teacher couldn’t believe I hadn’t taken private acting lessons. I never told her that, in a way, I had.” The bittersweet memory led to thoughts of New York, and Lawrence. And the divorce trial records easily obtained by anyone wishing to investigate her past.
She adjusted her straw hat the better to see John’s eyes. “Don’t you understand? The Mary Lou Denton you know is an act.
This
—” she gestured at the squalid surroundings “—is who I am. What I am. Sooner or later your family and friends would find out, John.”
He reached up and gently removed her hat, then cupped her face between his hands. “Who cares?”
Who cares? “I do. And so do you, deep down. God, the tabloids would have a field day if they got wind of your dating a woman like me.”
“An intelligent, beautiful—”
“Truck-stop manager, who also happens to be your employee, who also happens to come from the lowest rung of society.”
“Mary Lou, sweetheart—” he firmed his hold, his expression so tender her chest ached “—all that means is that you were smart enough, tough enough and courageous enough to rise above what life handed you. If anything, I admire you more now than before.” His eyes darkened subtly. “All that counts is how we feel about each other. All that matters is this.”
He lowered his head and took her mouth in a searing, possessive kiss. His tongue found hers and he groaned, the sound so rich with masculine satisfaction it stirred her deeply. She moved closer, threading her fingers through his beautiful hair, loving its silky texture.
Their bodies bumped, shifted, melded intimately. His hands splayed over her hips and pulled, showing her his desire more clearly than words. Her moan seemed to excite him more, and the kiss intensified. She was burning, flaming…
Mary Lou flung her head back and gasped for air. “Stop.”
His lips were on her throat. “Not until you agree to have dinner with me again,” he murmured against her skin.
Her laugh was half sob. “I can’t.”
He trailed soft kisses below her ear, over her drowsing eyelids, down her cheek. “You can,” he whispered fiercely, claiming her mouth once more.
A long time later, she did.
”…
SO WHICH
would you prefer, darling?”
Catherine had no idea. Her attention had wandered five minutes ago, an all-too-common occurrence in the week since Joe had kissed her neck—and one of the reasons she’d asked Carl over tonight.
“Umm…whichever
you
prefer.” She peeked across the living-room sofa to gauge his response.
Wearing Italian loafers, baggy wheat-colored trousers and a black silk T-shirt, he looked like a model for
GQ.
An extremely irritated model.
“You look very handsome tonight,” she added, hoping to distract him with his favorite subject.
Surprisingly, his frown only deepened. He propped his empty wineglass on one thigh and tapped the crystal rim with his index finger. The fine gold hairs on the back of his manicured fingers glinted in the lamplight.
It was a nice hand, she told herself. A perfectly good hand, even if his fingers were…well, stubby. At least, they were short compared to—
“Catherine!”
Her gaze shot up to meet his. “Yes, Carl?”
He tap-tap-tapped his glass.
She smiled weakly. “Would you like a refill on your wine?”
“I’d like you to answer my question.” His gray eyes were frosty.
Never again would she make fun of game-show contestants. “Could you repeat the question please?”
He shook his head in righteous disgust. “I
asked
if you prefer to honeymoon in Acapulco or St. Martin, but obviously you have something more important on your mind. Care to tell me about it?”
Well, you see, darling, another man made me want to tear his clothes off recently, and I was wondering if you could top that.
Stalling, she sipped her white wine and remembered Charlotte Wilson’s earlier phone call. “If you must know, Carl,” Catherine said now, “I’m upset about our engagement party.” She matched Carl frown for frown. “I thought you and I had agreed it should be an intimate, casual affair.”
“We did. So what’s the problem?”
“The problem is your mother mailed out almost two hundred invitations to a cocktail party yesterday.”