After a long pause, Noelle said, “The phone sounds funny, Manda. Like it's… Are you alone?”
“If you won't tell me where you are, I can't help you.”
Noelle's breathing spanned the lines. “You're on a speakerphone. I can tell. Sonny's dead, Manda, and I don't know who killed him. I can't trust anybody, even… Who's there with you?”
She needed to comfort Noelle, to assure her nothing bad would happen. “Callaway was with me when Sonny died. He’s—”
“Callaway?” Noelle’s gasp was audible.
“Noelle! Don't hang—”
A click and dial tone followed.
Callaway's hand fell away. The spot where his fingers had gripped her elbow felt cold.
Triumph blazed in his face. “She'll call back. Edward won't send her money. Who else does she have but you?”
“No one.” Amanda sank down on the sofa and laid her head in her hands. “No one.”
* * * *
At day's end, a weary Amanda closed the shop and, with Cal at her heels, went downstairs.
“Noelle may not call back,” she said, falling into the upholstered wing chair in her living room.
“Yes, she will. Either on the work line or your cell, and we'll talk to her when she does.” He headed to the kitchenette, saying after a few minutes, “This explains that emaciated look about you.”
Amanda made herself get up and go to the opening between kitchenette and living room. He was surveying the contents, or non-contents, of her refrigerator.
“It's fashionable to be an emaciated woman nowadays.”
“Not any more, with bulimia and anorexia so widespread among our female population. It's becoming much more fashionable to be pleasantly plump.” His gaze moved over to where she stood by the bar, brushed her breasts. “Of course, plump's always been fashionable some places.”
“That's a sexist point of view.” She refused to acknowledge the giddiness his approval engendered.
“Sad and politically incorrect, but true just the same. You have eggs.” He opened the carton and surveyed the eggs with distrust. “They expired last month but they look okay. How about an omelet?” He opened a cabinet door at random.
“If you know how to cook one, sure.”
He opened more doors. “Where's your omelet pan?”
“Hey,” she said with alarm. “I don't know what an omelet pan looks like. I use the microwave.”
He brandished a black iron skillet rescued from the depths of a bottom cabinet. “This might work. Actually, my one culinary feat is an omelet. And I hate washing dishes.” He aimed a meaningful stare her way.
Okay, she could take a hint. “If you cook, I'll clean up.”
His omelet, after he'd found a can of mushrooms, another of olives, some minced onions, and a jar of pimientos to add, didn't taste too bad. Neither mentioned Noelle, though Amanda knew he, like she, was expecting the phone, hoping the phone, would ring at any minute.
After supper he looked for the television. “I can't believe you don't have one. Don't you watch the news? How do you know what's going on in the world?”
“There's a TV in the smoking lounge,” she said, rinsing the skillet. “I read CNN on the computer and take the Sunday AJC.” She didn’t admit that the AJC was mostly for the comics. After she dried and put the pan away, she walked past the bar to check on what he was up to. “Besides, I have too many other things to do. I don’t have time to watch TV.”
“Oh? Go out a lot at night, do you?” He had found the iPod in its speaker dock and was checking out its contents.
She folded her arms and leaned against the living room archway while she thought about lying to him, and wondered briefly why. To make him aware she was a desirable woman? Too foolish. “I never go out. Usually I have designs to rough out, or billing to get out, or fabric orders to work up. There's always something to be done in the shop.”
He
tsked
in either disdain or sympathy. “All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl.”
“And all play and no work makes Jack a...” She stopped at his darkening expression.
“A what?”
She dropped onto the wing chair. “A playboy.”
He laughed and the tension disappeared, but she could tell she had unwittingly struck some sort of nerve.
He started some music. “How's this?”
“Nat King Cole. Before your time.”
“Yours, too,” he countered. “Nice.” He came to stand over her, holding out his hand. “Want to dance?”
“Dance?”
“You know. One two, one two. And don't say you can't dance. We've danced together before, remember?” He was smiling at her, the little boy's smile that revealed the unexpected dimple. His hand was held out.
She ought not. She ought to stay in her chair, safe and intact and alone. The smart thing to do would be to run away and hide.
Instead, she got up and took his hand. “I remember.”
Embracing her, he whirled her around and hummed with the song. At first she laughed, but when he pulled her close, when the tempo slowed along with his steps, she fell silent.
Being in his arms made her weak. Her heart hammered like a schoolgirl out with a boy for the first time. She’d forgotten how his fingers could touch her so lightly, yet start a hundred fires racing through her blood.
Too dangerous. She pulled away, putting space between them. “Do you go dancing often?” Small talk should calm the inner turmoil his nearness caused.
“It kills time.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Not enough to keep you out of trouble. You've been married three times.”
“Yeah, never could hold on to a woman.” He pivoted them around the small hardwood floor, drawing her back against him.
His smell was a blend of woodsy aftershave, cigarette smoke, and male skin.
“First time, I was still in school. She was looking for a meal ticket and I was available, but she could only hack it a couple of years. That divorce cost me a great deal of money and a great deal of self-respect.”
The barest trace of bitterness hinted at how badly he'd been hurt. Beneath the hard surface there might just be that little boy she kept envisioning. “And the second?”
“An aspiring actress. I was twenty-four. She lasted six months before settling for more money and what was left of my self-respect.”
Poor boy. She hadn't mistaken his hurt, nor did she mistake something else. He was hard against her. Moving away again, she tried to keep him at a distance.
His tone lightened as he pretended not to notice her retreat. “My absolutely, positively, indubitably last foray into matrimony was eight years ago. A stewardess I met in Palm Beach. That one was my record, time-wise. Two months. It wasn't quite as expensive as the others. Seemed she had a boyfriend waiting.” He spun her around. “I may have to be hit in the head a few times, but eventually I learn. I'm as good at marriage as I am at cooking.”
His cheerfulness invited laughter, and, lightheaded from his twirling and something else, she obliged. “Your omelet was wonderful. And it takes two to succeed at marriage.”
He grunted although she wasn't sure whether in agreement or not. She could tell he blamed himself for his marital failures.
“Why do you prefer redheads?” she asked, and was instantly annoyed with herself for probing. She should leave him alone and not try to learn any more about him.
But she couldn't help herself. Any more than she could help the lovely, languorous tingly feeling creeping up her arms and up her legs and down into her stomach and between her legs.
“Never thought about it.” His mind was somewhere else. “Red hair just always seems to catch my eye.”
“I'm honored then.”
“What?” He looked down at her, bewildered, before the dimple twinkled. “Don't worry about it. You've got something I want more than red hair.”
“Noelle.”
“Exactly.”
When he pulled her back to him, she had to stick her face against his neck or stare cross-eyed at his dimple. His beginning beard sanded her cheek, but she didn’t care. She inhaled his aftershave and the smoky male scent, and felt his excitement growing. Something perilous awakened within her.
This couldn’t go any further. In the middle of the song, she pulled away and turned off the music. “I'm tired. It's late.”
The gleam in his eyes was all too familiar. She had seen the same gleam too many times in male eyes, had preened too often at the power it gave her.
The old exhilaration was gone. She didn't want this power over Callaway, hadn't sought it, wouldn't wield it.
Her deceitful body trembled.
His voice was mild. Beguiling. “It isn't nine yet.”
“But I'm exhausted. Thanks for the omelet.” She spoke as coolly as she could. “You're a great cook.” Dear God, how had she been so foolish as to cling to him, mold herself against him? She knew what could happen.
Logic told her it would do her irreparable harm to go to bed with him. She wouldn’t lightly sleep with a man, and his reputation was well-known. He joked about it. She could have captivated him once, but now he'd be too wary to trust her for anything other than a casual fling.
She was beginning to like him. A lot. And oh, how she longed to have him, even for one night.
So when he came to her and took her in his arms, she let him kiss her and run his hand down her thigh, returning his kiss with long-banked passion.
But when he clasped her breast, she pushed him away. “I can't,” she whispered. “I'm sorry. It just won't work. Don't be angry.” She turned to go before she lost the will.
“Why won't it work?” From behind, his hands caught her shoulders and his lips brushed the responsive place beneath her ear.
Her head fell to the side in longing.
His voice was low, persuasive. “Why not, Amanda?”
Desire made her dizzy. His mouth on her neck sent shock waves throughout her body. The imprint of his hands made fiery patches on her skin.
He turned her to face him, using his body to press her against the frame of her bedroom door as he'd once pinned her to the wall of his cottage. But now she wasn't frightened. Now the quickening in her heart echoed in her ears as his thighs followed her legs. His hardness stirred an answering heat in her center.
“Let me go in with you. Please.” His fingertip traced the outline of her nipple through its protective layers. “You want me as much as I want you.”
Her body, aroused to fever pitch, screamed at her to let him come into her room, into her bed.
Her better judgment won out.
“I can't.”
“Why not?” Not angry, simply curious. He deserved a reply.
“I…” She sighed.
His tongue nuzzled her neck and moved down, so that his breath warmed the cloth of her dress and burned through to her swelling breast. His hand caressed her belly slowly, enticingly; sought her heated core. “You want this.”
She couldn't. “I'd want more than you're prepared to give.” This shaky voice wasn’t hers. “To me or any woman. If I went to bed with you, it would be because I'm falling in love with you. And that won't do, Callaway. You know it won't.”
He froze when she mentioned love. Then he lifted his head, the dim light from behind him making him a dark faceless silhouette. “You can't bring Tommy back.”
The name on his lips shocked her. “Tommy has nothing to do with this.”
“Doesn't he? Aren't you so wary of repeating the past you've forgotten how to live in the present?” His hand traced her cheek, rounded her ear to loosen the knot at the nape of her neck. “Have you fallen in love since Tommy? Have you let another man get near you, touch your heart? Or are you paying for an old mistake by turning into a dried-up prune, afraid to risk caring again?”
His directness made her gasp before she twisted her head away so that the thick coil of freed hair splintered and fell like a wall between them.
He pushed back the brown strands, caught her chin, and forced her to look at him. “Tell me, Amanda.” When he stepped back to get his shadow off her face, she seized the opportunity to slip inside her bedroom and close the door. Though she shut it with deliberate softness and did not lock it, she fell against its frame and clung to the knob and used it as support.
His presence, still and silent on the other side of the wooden panel, pressed against her like a solid mass.
It wasn't true, what he said.
She'd learned to deal with her guilt at Tommy's death. Her life was full and satisfying.
Wasn’t it?
Her body screamed for culmination, for consummation at this moment with this man, but she had turned him away and fled because she knew beforehand what the aftermath of loving would bring.
I'll regret this
.
Over the thudding of her heart, she heard his steps going down the hall toward the other bedroom.
* * * *
As he tore himself away from her door, Cal's heart thumped.
God, what was he thinking? He'd promised himself no more dumb surrenders to lust, no more mindless seductions. Dancing had merely been a way to while away the evening until Noelle's call. But Amanda had felt so good against him, so right. He wanted to make her laugh and forget her dead lover and conniving sister. He wanted to bring her back to life and change her back into the vital person she'd once been.