Pink Satin (11 page)

“Yes.” He wanted to pursue it, but didn’t. Greer’s voice held a defensive pride.
I
can handle my own problems. I always have.
Ryan watched her steadily maneuver in and around the other cars. “Are you going to feed me tonight?” he asked casually.

“No.” But she was. She had known the minute she saw him that she was doomed again. It wasn’t wise, getting involved with McCullough; she had been foolish to sleep with him, and the best thing she could possibly do now was tactfully ease herself out of any further intimate contact. Besides that, she was hot, tired and irritable; she had to call her mother…and blood was dancing up and down her veins just from being this close to Ryan again.

“Greer? It’s a red light.”

Obviously. She turned to him quizzically as she stopped the car, unsure why he was stating the obvious. His face loomed closer, much closer. So swiftly, so softly, his lips touched hers. And again. And then sank in the way a pillow sank in, a soft crash of weight, leaving the molded indentation of his mouth afterward. She was staring at him, dark eyes bemused, confused and warm with longing, when the car behind her honked.

She jammed her foot on the accelerator. The car stalled. Ryan chuckled.

“Listen,” she began abruptly as she started the engine and drove through the intersection.

“I’m listening.”

But Greer didn’t have anything to say. Ryan sneezed again, and she frowned.

“Are you catching something?”

“I
never
catch
anything.”

“What’s wrong with your car?”

“Nothing. Just needed an oil change. And I used the excuse to get dropped off where you’d be stuck taking me home.”

“Didn’t it once occur to you to call? I might have been working late.”

“I considered that, rationally. Except that rational decisions haven’t always worked out too well lately.”

“Pardon?”

At her apartment, a tall, towheaded boy was ambling out of their building with a sack of newspapers slung over his shoulder. He brightened at the sight of Greer. “Hi.” His voice sounded cracked and wistful.

“Hi, Johnny,” she returned warmly. “Life treating you okay?”

The boy spread his fingers and wagged his hand back and forth, and Greer chuckled. “You’re not alone,” she assured him as she waved goodbye and fumbled for her apartment key.

Ryan glanced back, to see the boy staring at Greer—at least until he caught Ryan’s deadpan stare. Johnny turned in a hurry, flipped up the kickstand of his bike and sped off. Ryan climbed the stairs at a more sedate pace, noting that Greer’s newspaper had been neatly tucked behind her doorknob. His own had been haphazardly tossed near the mailbox.

“Known him long?” he asked.

“Who?”

“The kid.”

Greer looked up. “Sure. Johnny and his mom have lived across the street for as long as I’ve been here.”

“He’s got a crush on you.”

“Yes. Painful. On both sides. I wouldn’t hurt him for anything; he’s a sweetheart.” She glanced up when Ryan stole the key from her hand and motioned her toward his place. “I thought you wanted me to cook?”

What he wanted her to be was
safe,
and away from every damn male but him.

Prepared for a touchy exercise in tact, Ryan had found her boss more than willing to listen. Grant clearly appreciated Greer’s talents and was personally fond of her. Ryan had liked him instantly. The man had been disturbed that Greer hadn’t mentioned her crank calls to him, and not all that quick to discount any of his employees as possible culprits. He wasn’t in a hurry to malign any of his staff, but Grant admitted that several men would have done more than look at Greer if she’d ever given them the first encouragement. If Ryan was implying that those calls could mean a threat of a sexual nature…

Ryan had implied nothing. He’d said it straight out.

The police had assured him that nuisance callers rarely followed through on their telephone threats. Despite that, every instinct told him that this caller was a sexual threat to Greer.

And Ryan was disturbed, frustrated, fiercely protective and beginning to worry about even fourteen-year-old boys who looked at her.

He coaxed. “You haven’t seen my place since it was decorated in packing crates. We can eat there just as well.”

“I need to change my clothes, my mother calls on Mondays, and I—”

“You can call her from my apartment, or vice versa. I had an extension of your phone installed this morning.’”

“You
what?”

***

Greer’s temper simmered helplessly while Ryan shoved some kind of gourmet TV fare in the oven, showed her around the apartment, nudged a dish of mixed raisins and nuts into her hand, and left her to muddle around while he disappeared to change his shirt.

By the time they finished dinner, she figured he had to have exhausted himself with inconsequential nonstop patter about engineering, and weather, and his mother’s love of gardenias, and health care in England. Only after dinner, he installed her on the couch. His furniture was new; she couldn’t help but approve of it. The couch was an off-white nubby affair, and she sank into it so deeply and so comfortably that she doubted she could get up.

Her stocking feet seemed to be propped on an ottoman, and she hadn’t seen her shoes in an hour. It was tough, dredging up irritation when she was so comfortable. The rest of his new furnishings were equally pleasing. He had placed them all wrong—men will be men—but they were tasteful and appealing. Brass lamps, an oak rolltop desk, shelves in pecan, a coffee table in that rare dark marble she’d seen only in books before… The only thing he hadn’t found a place for was a painting.

The
 
oil was resting on the floor against the wall, a seascape at dawn; the creamy breakers were rolling in, and the waters beyond were a bright, endless blue. The blue of Ryan’s eyes.

“That’s been sitting there for days,” he said casually. “Wouldn’t have any ideas where I should hang it, would you?”

She had several ideas where Ryan was concerned, none of them mentionable. In a demonstration of totally out-of-character garrulousness, he’d mentioned lightly that he’d had a very busy day with the police and the phone company on her behalf. Now her phone—temporarily—rang in his apartment as well as her own. Since it was past time to get to the bottom of the caller mystery, he couldn’t imagine that she had any objections.

Four times she’d opened her mouth to read him the riot act. Four times she’d closed it.

Confusion kept her silent. She heard Ryan’s overt message, but she heard the unspoken one as well. She’d given him certain rights when she made love with him. Privacy and lovers didn’t go together, of course. Or they shouldn’t. When you loved someone, you bared your vulnerabilities, laid open your weaknesses. Like the things you were afraid of.

And where Greer could have criticized Ryan for interfering if he’d been a friend, she couldn’t bring herself to do so now. He’d gone over her head only because she’d given him certain rights. To love. And in loving, to protect.

Ryan, so very subtly, was bulldozing her with the fact that he considered her part of his life.

He was also busy wandering to and from the other rooms. He placed a hammer in her lap. Then two nails. Then some wire. By the time he plopped into the chair across from her, he managed somehow to look boyishly innocent.

Greer sighed. “Why do I have the feeling you’ve never tried to hang a picture before?”

“I have. But they always end up crooked.” He added hopefully, “Do you want a tape measure?”

“No. You can’t do these things by measuring. You have to do them by the look of the thing.”

She didn’t want to do it. Putting up pictures was another one of those things. Those intimate things. It didn’t involve naked skin, but it was still inescapably intimate. The picture had bothered her from the instant she’d walked in, not because it was on the floor, but because she wanted it in the right place. An idiotic feminine impulse. A desire to put her personal stamp on his place. An instinct that assumed a vested interest, and she didn’t dare give in to it.

“I thought about hanging it over the TV,” Ryan said absently.

“No!” The painting would look wretched there. Dammit. Feeling helpless, Greer stood up, straightening her blouse, and surveyed the picture and the room with a critical eye. “You
can’t
put it there. Hang it over the couch or on that wall so you can see it when you come in…” Her eye lingered on the far wall.

“Okay.” A step stool miraculously appeared where she was looking. “You want me to do it?” he asked innocently.

She wanted him to take a flying hike. “If you were going to do it, you wouldn’t have brought out the step stool,” she said dryly.

“You need someone to hold the nails,” he said helpfully.

She gave in. They bickered back and forth for the better part of an hour. Greer climbed up and down the step stool forty times to judge the height of the picture, endured no end of comments about her fussiness, paused for a phone conversation with her mother, hammered in the first nail crooked, made a hole in the plaster, suffered his laughter, and triumphantly accepted a glass of wine while they both surveyed the perfectly placed oil painting in shared total exhaustion.

The first sip of wine was sliding down her throat, cool and smooth, when Ryan abruptly murmured, “Stay.”

Her eyes darted up to his. The painting behind him abruptly disappeared. Something went wrong with her focus, because the only thing clear in her vision was Ryan. A man with shirtsleeves rolled up and an open collar, a man with brilliant blue eyes and ruffled hair. A man who wasn’t smiling. A man who couldn’t possibly have playfully patted her fanny moments before when she descended the step stool, because there wasn’t an ounce of play in his eyes now. Just wanting. Honest, bold, clear.

In her heart, she’d been expecting that invitation, but not at this particular instant, not after she’d just very foolishly immersed herself in playing wife for the past hour. Lots of clever reasons why she couldn’t stay popped into her head. The cat. Stockings to wash out. She’d forgotten to water the plant in her bedroom; she just now remembered it.

Gently, his arms draped over her shoulders, pulling her closer. She couldn’t speak; there was something tight and thick in her throat. Maybe the wine. Her cheek rested against his heart a moment later, his arms slowly smoothed around her and he simply held her, length to length, warmth to warmth. He felt so right she could have cried.

“You’re going to have to tell me what’s bothering you,” he said quietly. “Do you know I love you?”

She shook her head, eyes closed.

“I do, Greer. So much. I love the way you think, your eyes, your legs…” He forced her chin up with a smile. “Your sense of humor. I love being beaten by you at chess. I even love your damned cat. And I love…touching you.” Softly, he stroked her hair back from her forehead with a single finger. “I love doing that, too. Making an absolute mess out of your hair, knowing you don’t give a damn. Knowing you care more for the feel of my hands on you than about how you look. Are you going to try to tell me you don’t like it when I touch you?”

“No,” she said quietly, honestly. Her stricken eyes met his. “You know I do.”

“Greer.” His finger stayed gently tucked under her chin, his voice grave, gentle. “Has someone hurt you in bed?”

All his subtlety had disappeared, remarkably fast. She should have known. “No, nothing like that.” She flushed. The knot in her throat refused to budge. Her palms suddenly felt icy, and she was trembling. “I think…” she said hesitantly. “Ryan, I think you want something from me that just…isn’t there.”

The smallest frown furrowed his brow. “You’ll have to explain that.”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how,” she said helplessly.

“Honey…”

She ducked away from his touch, wrapping her arms around her chest, slowly pacing away from him, and then looking frenetically around the room for her shoes. They weren’t in sight. The door, at least, was. Until he slowly, quietly, moved in front of it.

“Look,” she said abruptly and took a huge breath, facing him. “Ryan, I’ve just never been very good at…sexual relationships.” She worked frantically to keep her tone light, casual. “Some women are the black-nightgown type, you know? Not me. Caring, loving, listening, showing respect—those are terribly important things to me in a relationship. The…other…has never really mattered to me.” She gulped. “I just feel that…that perhaps it would be wiser for us to call it off, not try to go any further. I don’t want to disappoint you, and I don’t want to be hurt.”

“Greer—”

“This is a wonderfully liberated decade. There are lots of women out there who are much more…sexual than I am. It’s not a question of willingness, or even love.” She tried for a smile. “Ryan, I go to bed in a T-shirt with a picture of Garfield on it. Does that tell you anything?”

“Greer—”

“I’ll get my shoes another time.”

Before the tears could blind her, she whisked past him and out the door, fumbled in the flowerpot for her key and whipped inside her apartment. She locked the door and leaned against it, her heart pounding, her eyes moist, her hands shaky.

She was terrified he would come after her, but he didn’t. After several long minutes of just standing there with her head thrown back against the door, she bit her lip and moved through the dark apartment to turn on a light.

The telephone jangling next to her ear made her jump. She grabbed it, for once with no fear of her crank caller, her only purpose in stopping the mind-splitting noise—or for that moment it seemed mind-splitting.

Her caller didn’t wait for her to say hello.

“I love Garfield,” said the low voice, “and the rest, sweetheart, is bull.”

He hung up.

As Greer left her apartment the following morning, she heard the sound of coughing through Ryan’s closed door. She hesitated a moment and then hurried on to work.
You have to stop making him your business, Greer. Besides, he was perfectly healthy last night.

She worried about him the entire day. When she arrived home just after five, she saw that his car was already parked in the lot, and frowned on her way up the walk. He
never
came home from work before six.

Inside, she changed into a yellow cotton sundress, fed the cat and fussed with a casserole. She was halfway through dinner when the phone rang. Biting her lip, she rose from the table and determinedly stalked toward the living room.

She picked up the phone on the second ring. “Hello?”

Her eyes squeezed closed when she heard the familiar low, throaty pant. Her stomach curled, and the same old fear licked up her spine. Her hands went slippery as she started to replace the phone. It hadn’t quite connected when she heard something else, and lifted the receiver halfway to her ear again.

“…and get the
hell
off that phone!” The colorful litany was punctuated by a sneeze.

She stared blankly at the receiver for a moment. “Ryan? If you’re talking to me—” she started irritably.

“Of
course
I’m not talking to you, foolish one. And
don’t
pick up the phone again tonight.” He slammed down his end.

She dropped hers. When or if The Breather had dropped his, she had no idea.

She stood silent, for an instant almost smiling. Ryan had quite an extensive vocabulary. She was familiar with all the words but had never heard them strung together in quite that way. She didn’t think it was physically possible for The Breather to do with himself what Ryan had suggested.

Her smile abruptly died. Her neighbor was sick. It wasn’t just one little cough and a few sneezes that convinced her, but the grating hoarseness in his voice. Abruptly, she whirled for the kitchen, and the freezer.

A half hour later, with a picnic basket under her arm, she crossed the hall to Ryan’s apartment, tentatively set down the basket and raised her hand to knock. Then dropped her hand, hesitating.

No one could know what it had cost her to admit her sexual failings to Ryan the night before. It had hurt when he refused to take her seriously. There was no way she wanted to give him the least chance to start something up again. Over a long, sleepless night, she’d decided that the only way to handle the situation from now on was to keep her distance.

Still. He was
ill.
And she was hardly
inviting
anything by just checking on him. When her fingers still hesitated to knock, she grimly reminded herself that she refused to play games with him. She was who she was. A lady who brought cough lozenges, not one who raised blood pressure. A woman who could be counted on as an honest friend, not as a potential lover.

She knocked. Once, again, and then a third time.

“Who’s there?”

She almost smiled at the crabby voice. “Greer.”

“Go away.”

She did smile then. The door wasn’t locked; she let herself in. “I’m here,” she called out. “Just stay where you are.”

The living room was silent and looked like a general disaster area. The curtains were closed; the air was stale; two glasses had been left out from the night before; clothes were strewn every which way. The kitchen was deserted, but it looked worse than the living room.

Lugging the picnic basket, Greer ventured determinedly toward Ryan’s bedroom and paused in the doorway.

The room looked remarkably different than it had the night they’d painted it. The king-sized bed was covered with rumpled cocoa-colored sheets; floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of natural pecan held a stereo and a smattering of books. A thick comforter in stripes of cream and dark brown had been tossed on the floor, and he’d carpeted the room in incredibly plush cocoa that felt like sponge beneath her feet.

She noticed all of that, but it was the man who really drew her attention, and Ryan looked like hell. Bare-chested, he was propped up on pillows with a makeshift drawing board in his lap. His hair was all rumpled, his chin dark with whiskers and his eyes looked glassy and lifeless.

She knew at a glance that he had a fever and that it was high. Dark circles half-mooned beneath his eyes, and there was a white pallor under his tan; dots of moisture marked his brow.

She loved him more that minute than she had ever even conceived of loving anyone. For no reason. Truthfully, he looked tight-lipped and furious when he glanced up and saw her—and the effort of raising his head made him wince, as if he had an excruciating headache.

“Exactly what I expected, McCullough,” she said softly. She set down the picnic basket and bent over it, taking items out one by one. “Juice. Soup, nice and hot. Aspirin. Thermometer.”

“Take that sweet little fanny of yours out of here, Greer.”

She heard the low, rumbled warning, but paid no attention. “If you expect to pull a fit of temper on me, McCullough, you can forget it. When my father gets a sniffle, he can outswear a sailor in a storm. What always kills me about men is that they’re at their meanest when they’re at their weakest. Machismo comes out of the woodwork, so to speak. Now…” She’d brought glasses as well. Being male, there was every chance he didn’t have clean ones. “Lemonade or orange juice?”

“Neither.”

“Lemonade it is.” She poured a glass and set it next to the bed, efficiently stealing the drawing board from his lap and whisking it to the floor on her downhill swing. “Now, can you handle soup, or is your stomach involved?”

“Your hide is about to be involved. I need to finish that work, and I’d appreciate it if you’d give me back the drawing board. If you value life and limb.”

He was propped up against the pillows, his threat virtually groundless. Greer scanned the bed and frowned, her eyes deliberately averted from his Jockey shorts. “Do you own a pair of pajamas?”

“Go home, Greer.”

“How long have you had a fever? Did you call the doctor?”

“Go
home,
Greer.”

She set the bottle of aspirin next to the lemonade, giving him a wry look. “You’re a little testy when you’re sick, are you? So am I, McCullough. You’re not alone. Take two aspirin and drink the juice. I’ll clean up in the other room and bring back some fresh sheets in a few minutes. No arguing.”

She heard no protest, and strolled from the room with almost a smile. It felt utterly natural, taking care of him. She didn’t really care if he was crabby. And this role, the role of caretaker, came naturally; it was
Greer;
it was her way of showing love and caring, one way she’d always easily shown love and caring.

In the living room, she picked up the dirty dishes and took them to the kitchen. Filling the sink with soapy water, she grabbed a dishcloth and started to work. She wasn’t really worried about Ryan. Anyone who had enough energy to be mean couldn’t be seriously ill. Actually, she almost felt the silly urge to hum, until the dishcloth was abruptly stolen from her hands by a towering behemoth behind her.

“Ryan, just get back in bed. You shouldn’t be up at all. For heaven’s sake, I—”

He was pale to his toes, his forehead sweating and his hands unsteady—but not so unsteady he couldn’t grasp her by the shoulders and firmly propel her toward the door.

When he flung open the door, he started coughing, but he still managed to push her inelegantly into the hall. “I love you like hell, sweetheart, but I think we’d better get this absolutely straight. For openers, there’s no way I’m going to expose you to a virus, even if it’s only a twenty-four-hour bug. More important, if I need a mother, I’ve got one in Maine. There’s a hell of a lot I want from you as a woman, lady, but being babysat isn’t and never will be one of them.”

He slammed the door. She heard the latch.

For a moment, she stood stunned. Then she was so furious she couldn’t think. The mule-headed dolt. The ungrateful, evil-tempered windbag. For ten cents, she’d send a dozen roses to that mother of his in Maine with a note of congratulations for having survived his upbringing.

In the meantime, she felt as if she’d been kicked in the stomach. Tears stung her eyes as she slammed her own door moments later and immediately crossed the room to take the phone off the hook…
not
because she was afraid his rest might be disturbed by one of her telephone calls. Just because.

***

The two top floors of Charlotte’s brand-new Madison Hotel had been transformed for the lingerie trade show. The entire place was covered with froth. Companies from California to Paris had mounted exhibits of panties, nightgowns, bras, teddies, robes and lounging outfits. A rainbow of pastels predominated, though there were splashes of scarlet and black as well.

The suppliers outnumbered the designers. Sales reps for manufacturers of cotton, satin, silk and lace roamed the floors. Industrial sewing machines of many kinds were on exhibit. Thread companies, such as Metrosene from Switzerland, were demonstrating the superior quality and strength of their product. Advertising people were everywhere. The flow of dialogue was 90 percent American slang, with an occasional smattering of French and a few Irish brogues. Though the French didn’t like to believe it, Belgian and Irish lace was nothing to sneeze at.

The huge turnout of exhibitors indicated just how big the lingerie industry had become. If the look was frothy, the mood was cutthroat. And by late afternoon on Thursday, Greer had had enough. The razzle-dazzle had had some appeal in the beginning, if for no other reason than that she couldn’t possibly think about anything else over the noise, particularly about a nasty-tempered man with fathomless blue eyes.

For once, Ryan was less on her mind than a growing headache. Comparing prices, finding potential new suppliers of fabrics, taking note of quality variations in the industry, comparing the various sewing techniques, trying to gauge trends—she and Ray had work to do here, and both Grant and Marie would expect an extensive report on their return. Only Greer had discovered quickly that fibs and fast lines abounded; talk was cheap and true information difficult to come by.

It wasn’t her scene. The constant noise had gotten to her long before dinnertime, when Ray grabbed her arm and suggested a quick and quiet meal in their rooms.

“We shouldn’t,” Greer said wearily. “This only happens once a year. I promised Marie I would talk to Barteau, and I haven’t even seen him…”

“You’re entitled to put your feet up, darling. You can track him down tomorrow.”

She didn’t need much more persuading. A huge yawn escaped her lips as the elevator closed on the two of them. Ray’s midnight-dark eyes regarded her with amusement.

“Now I know why I never wanted to go to these things before,” Greer admitted. “It would be different if I felt as if I’d accomplished something besides running my feet off.”

“You’re not supposed to accomplish anything at a trade show. You’re supposed to toot your horn and sharpen your nails on the competitor closest to you. You did well,” Ray assured her as he led her out on their floor. “Seems foolish for each of us to order room service separately, doesn’t it? Your room or mine?”

She paused indecisively, wishing her blasted headache would go away. His room was a long way down the opposite side of the hall. “I suppose mine…” she started uncertainly.

“Fine.” He followed her, waited patiently while she fumbled with her room key and closed the door behind them while Greer collapsed with a sigh of relief in the closest chair.

From her fourth-floor window, she had a view of downtown Charlotte, and her room was lovely. The decor was rose and cream; she had her own couch and chair as well as a large bed and a spacious dressing room, and the maid had put away her carelessly strewn clothes while she’d been working. It was heavenly to be waited on.

Her eyes at half-mast, she tilted her head back and curled her feet under her, watching while Ray picked up the phone to dial room service. He was dressed in a dark suit and tie and looked, as usual, sophisticated and ready to seduce, but he’d been very close to an angel this day. He had spared her his usual sexual innuendos and undercurrents. He’d also saved her from a boring lunch with an overbearing advertising executive and had popped up at her side several times during the day with coffee and snacks.

Wearily, she considered getting up to apply fresh makeup, and decided the energy just wasn’t there.

Ray put down the phone. “Steaks and wine. Twenty minutes—they claim,” he said wryly. “Go ahead. Take off your shoes. Don’t tell me you’re standing on ceremony because I’m here?”

Wandering toward the window, he was already shrugging off his suit jacket and loosening his tie. He still had energy, Greer marveled, though as always with Ray, it was a restless, uneasy energy. A sudden minuscule tremor touched her spine, the awareness of being alone with him rather catching her by surprise. Foolish. Slipping off her powder-blue pumps, she bent over to rub her aching feet. “We did well, didn’t we?” she said lightly. “I thought our booth was as tasteful as any. And from listening to the scuttlebutt, I got the feeling our sales are better than most. What do you think of that new acetate Bingham’s is pushing?”

Ray shrugged casually. “I’ll take a sample back to Marie.”

He didn’t want to talk. She couldn’t blame him. They’d talked all day. When dinner came, she unbuttoned the jacket of her pale blue suit, tucked her legs under her and dug in. Room service had delivered the meal on a tea cart, and Ray pushed up to her chair and then sat on the couch across from her.

Twice he leaned over to refill her wineglass. Twice all she could think of was that Ryan did it differently. Ray moved with…finesse. Expertise. As if every move had been predetermined by a set of rules. Ryan’s body moved with such natural ease…but she’d sworn off thinking of Ryan. The man didn’t want her around. Not on any basis she was prepared to offer him.

She’d worried about him for three days, which was undoubtedly why she was so wretchedly exhausted after one simple ten-hour period of being on her feet. The relationship…was dead. He didn’t want a woman who worried about him. He wanted a woman to share his bed. And she knew that just wouldn’t work.