Something Different/Pepper's Way (15 page)

“We can work it out, honey,” he told her in a voice of quiet certainty. “I know we can. If you’ll just give us a chance.”

“How will you feel,” she persisted tonelessly “when I start ignoring you—maybe for days at a time? When I can’t stand to be touched or bothered in any way? When I snap at you for no good reason? When I work around the clock?”

“We’ll work it out,” he repeated quietly.

“But what if we can’t?” Her voice sounded afraid of itself.

“If we both make an effort, there’s nothing we can’t do. I promise you, sweetheart.”

“I need time,” she whispered. “Time to be sure.” After a moment she felt his lips moving against her forehead.

“Then we’ll take all the time you need.” His hands began wandering beneath the covers, and he abruptly lightened the mood. “Meanwhile back at the farm…”

“Chase…” She swallowed a giggle, wondering how he could have her near tears one moment and giggling the next.

“I’m hooked on you, Gypsy mine; you’ll just have to accept that.”

“Take your hand off my derriere, sir!” she commanded with injured dignity. “Or I shall retaliate!”

“Please do,” he invited politely.

Luckily she just happened to discover his weakness. She tickled him and was immediately rewarded when he choked back a laugh.

“Gypsy—”

“Ha! You’re ticklish! I knew there was a chink in the armor.”

“I’m bigger than you, sweetheart,” he warned, struggling to keep her hands away from ticklish places.

“Not if you’re ticklish.” Gypsy feinted and lunged with happy abandon, breaking through his defenses from time to time. “If you’re ticklish, you’re at my mercy!”

“Stop that, you witch!” He choked, making a vain attempt to pin her down to the bed. “I’ll tickle you until you can’t breathe,” he promised threateningly.

“Go ahead.” Gypsy launched another sneak attack, smiling with evil enjoyment. “I’m not ticklish.”

“What?” He looked horrified. “Not at all?”

“Well… there is
one
place.”

“I’ll find it,” he vowed determinedly, hastily blocking her newest line of attack. “If it takes me the rest of my life!”

“Until then—” She commenced a two-handed, hell-for-leather attack.

“Gypsy!”

eight

“CHASE, YOU CAN’T
DO
THAT IN A JACUZZI.”

“Says who?”

“Me. We’ll drown.”

“It’s a chance in a million. I’m willing to risk it; how about you?”

“I have to get out. It’s nearly noon. We’ve wasted the entire morning.”

“Wasted?”

“Well…”

“You look so lovely… like Circe, rising from—”

“I hope you’ve got your legends mixed up,” she interrupted tartly.

Chase was suspiciously innocent. “Why?”

“Circe turned men into swine,
that’s
why.”

“Sorry. Who do I mean?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“Helen of Troy?”

“‘The face that launched a thousand ships’? I don’t look that good, pal.”

“You launched my ship,” he pointed out.

“It’s not hard to launch a leaky canoe.”

“I’ll get you for that!”

“Chase! Stop it this instant! I’ll tickle you! I swear, I—” There was a long silence, broken only by the bubbling water, and then Gypsy’s voice, bemused and breathless.

“Well, what do you know… you
can
do that in a Jacuzzi.”

Chase headed into Portland after lunch to return their costumes, leaving Gypsy hard at work behind the typewriter. Half expecting to be dreamy-eyed and thoughtful after their first night together, she was more than a little surprised to find that she was able to keep her mind on writing. In fact, she turned out page after page that more than satisfied her own critical standards.

It was enough to spark a faint hope. If, somehow, Chase stirred her to write
better,
then perhaps the obsessions were a thing of the past. At least she could hope they were.

Daisy was delivered around four, and Gypsy was walking in a slow circle around the car when Chase pulled into the drive and began unloading the Mercedes.

“Groceries,” he announced cheerfully. “Both our cupboards are bare. I see Daisy arrived safe and sound.”

Gypsy automatically accepted the bag he handed to her. “Chase, you had her painted. And
all
the dents are out—not just the ones from the Mercedes.”

“Looks pretty good, doesn’t she?” Chase studied the little blue car critically. “I told them to reapply the daisy decals.”

Still staring at him, Gypsy protested, “But she’s got a whole new interior. New carpet, newly upholstered seats. Chase, the insurance didn’t pay for all of that.”

“Daisy deserves the best.” He kissed Gypsy on the nose and headed for the house.

“Why?” Gypsy asked blankly following behind. “And why
haven’t you had the dent taken out of the Mercedes? It’s a
sin
to drive a dented Mercedes.”

“The dent is a memento,” he told her gravely, unloading the groceries in the kitchen. “And Daisy deserves the best because she introduced us. We probably wouldn’t have met otherwise; until you came along, I never paid attention to neighbors.”

“Oh.” Gypsy thought that over for a while.

“I hope you like lobster.”

“Love it. You’re
never
going to get the dent taken out?”

“That Mercedes will go to its grave with the dent.”

Gypsy helped Chase put away groceries. “I bet Freud could have had a field day with that,” she murmured finally.

“I wouldn’t doubt it. Through for the day?”

She blinked, remembered her writing, and nodded. “With the book. But I got a set of galleys in the mail, and I have to proof them. They have to go back in the mail tomorrow.”

“Without fail?”

“Without fail.”

“How long will it take you to proof them?”

“Couple of hours. Give or take.”

“Ah! Then we’ll have plenty of time.”

“Time for what?” she asked innocently.

“To cook lobster, of course,” he replied, totally deadpan.

“Let a girl down, why don’t you.”

“Never.”

“Besides, I don’t cook. Remember?”

“I’ll cook. You’ll keep me company. What is this?” He was holding up a covered plastic bowl taken from the refrigerator.

Gypsy crossed her arms and leaned back against the counter. “I don’t remember what it started out to be. Now it’s a whatisit.”

“Come again?”

“A whatisit.” She smiled gently at his bafflement.

“Is it alive?” he wondered, prudently not lifting the lid to find out.

“Probably.” Gypsy choked back a giggle. “I warned you that I wasn’t a housekeeper.”

“I seem to remember that you did.” Chase stared at the mysterious bowl for a moment, then placed it back in the refrigerator.

“Lack of courage?” she queried mockingly.

“Common sense. No telling how long that thing’s been growing in there; it might bite by now.”

“Superman would have looked.”

“Superman would have thrown it into outer space.”

Gypsy sighed mournfully. “They just don’t make heroes like they used to.”

“Pity, isn’t it?” He lifted an eyebrow at her.

She crossed the room suddenly and wrapped her arms around his waist, hugging fiercely.

“Hey!” He was surprised, but clearly pleased. “What did I do?”

“You made Daisy beautiful.” She hugged harder, rubbing her cheek against his chest. “Thank you.”

“Superman would have gotten you a new Daisy,” he said gruffly, returning the hug with interest.

“Superman wouldn’t have known I wanted
my
Daisy. You did.”

“I won out over Superman?” he asked hopefully.

“Hands down. Let Lois have him.”

Chase turned her face up gently, gazing down into misty gray eyes. “I think the lobster will wait awhile,” he murmured.

“Lobsters are tactful souls….”

Gypsy didn’t get around to proofing the galleys until nearly midnight. And she only managed to get started then because she flatly refused to share Chase’s shower.

“You’ll be sorry….”

“And you’re a menace!” Gypsy carelessly discarded the caftan she’d been wearing all evening and climbed into bed. Ignoring her audience, she pulled the covers up, arranged them neatly, and drew the galleys forward. “I absolutely
have
to read these. Go take your shower.”

There was a moment of silence, and then Chase said in a laughing voice, “I’d much rather watch you.”

Gypsy was hanging half out of bed, fumbling beneath it and muttering to herself. “Ah!” She righted herself, rescued the sliding galleys, and held up a pair of her reading glasses in one triumphant hand. “I knew they were there somewhere.”

“You keep a pair under the bed?” Chase asked politely.

“Where do—”

“I know,” he interrupted ruefully. “Where do
I
keep glasses?”

“Am I in a rut?” she wondered innocently.

“No, sweetheart.” He bent over the bed to kiss her lightly. “You’re the last person in the
world
who could ever be in a rut.”

“Close the door,” she called after him, polishing her glasses on the sheet. “I don’t need steamy galleys.”

“If it’s
steamy
you want—”

“Don’t say it!”

The closing bathroom door cut off his laugh.

Smiling to herself, Gypsy began to read the galleys. She was vaguely aware of the shower going on in the bathroom, but concentrated completely on the job at hand. Until the phone rang.

Gypsy quickly picked up the receiver, only half her mind on the action. “Hello?”

“You were gone again last night.”

She cast a baffled, harrassed look toward the bathroom door. Dammit, it
had
to be Chase. “I told you to stop calling me!” she said fiercely.

“‘I am two fools, I know, for loving, and for saying so,’” he breathed sadly.

He was quoting Donne again.

Gypsy pushed the glasses to the top of her head and tried to think. “Don’t call me again—and I mean it this time!”

“I dream of you,” he whispered. “I dream of a voice like honey, of sweetness and gentleness. I believe in unicorns and heroes, and I wish on stars.”

“Quit it,” she said weakly.

“I created a dream-love, and she’s you. She’s the first flower of spring, the first star at night, the sun’s first ray in the morning. She’s a song I can’t forget, a light in the darkness, and I love her.”

“Please,
quit it,” Gypsy moaned desperately.

“Dream of me, love.” The phone clicked softly.

Gypsy cradled the receiver. She nudged Corsair off her foot, not even noticing when he immediately resumed his favorite sleeping place. Undecided, she looked toward the bathroom door, then shook her head.

“No,” she murmured to Corsair, or to Bucephalus beside the bed. “If I went and looked, he’d be there. And I don’t think I could take it.” She gazed into Corsair’s china-blue eyes be-musedly “I might well be in love with two men—and one of them’s faceless, nameless, and probably a nut!”

When Chase came out of the bathroom a few minutes later, she was chewing on the earpiece of her glasses and staring into space.

Chase, a towel knotted around his waist, came over to the bed. He picked up Corsair, got Bucephalus by the collar, and
escorted both to the door, shutting them out in the hall. When he turned around, he looked at Gypsy for a moment, then asked politely, “You’d rather they slept in here?”

“Hmmm?” She blinked at him.

“The pets.” He crossed to sit on the foot of the bed, adding, “You were frowning at me.”

“Cheshire cat,” she murmured absently.

It was his turn to blink. “Earth to Gypsy?”

She stirred, finally giving him her full attention. “I wasn’t frowning at you—I was just frowning.”

“Why?”

Gypsy looked at him for a moment. “Seemed the thing to do.”

Chase gave up. He shed the towel and climbed into bed beside her. “About finished up?” he asked seductively.

“About at the end of my rope,” she confided seriously.

He propped himself up on an elbow and stared at her for a long moment. “You’re just full of cryptic comments tonight, Gypsy mine.”

“Uh-huh.” Gypsy dumped the galleys on the floor beside the bed, dropping her glasses on top of them. “I’ll do these in the morning.
Early
in the morning before the mailman comes. Don’t let me forget.”

“Perish the thought….”

The galleys were late.

The next few days were interesting to say the least. Nights were alternately spent in Chase’s house or Gypsy’s, although days were generally spent at Gypsy’s since she flatly refused to “clutter up” Chase’s lovely den or study with her stuff.

She worked during the day; her story was still shaping without an obsessive urge to work constantly. Chase made
several trips into Portland, where his office was located; he was officially on vacation, but since his was a one-man office, and since he was designing a house for Jake and Sarah, the trips were necessary.

But he was usually somewhere nearby. Gypsy would look up occasionally to see him stretched out on the couch reading, or hear him whistling in the kitchen. And he always made sure she ate regularly.