Authors: Glenys O'Connell
Maybe she needed rescuing.
* * *
“So, I hear you’ve written a book – a bestseller, no less? Well done, little Mouse.” Joey hugged her to him. Anna closed her eyes in bliss – only to discover there was no bliss in her.
“Did I tell you I went pro? All the way to the leagues, baby – maybe after this bun fight is all over, you’ll come back to my place and I’ll show you some videos of my greatest moments on the pitch?” Joey spoke with such confidence, and so obviously wanted to share his achievements with her, that Anna basked in his warmth.
After all, the football team captain had said: “Well done” about her work! And he wanted to show her his greatest moments! But it did occur to her that his comments about her achievements had been pretty short, and she wondered if he knew anything about her book. Even though she tried to beat the thought down, light was dawning in her brain and she couldn’t ignore it. “Er, wait a moment, now…is this something like showing me your etchings?”
He burst into uproarious laughter, slapping a hand on his beefy thigh as if she’d said the most amusing thing in the world. “Well, well, Miss Mouse – you have grown a sense of humour since you left school!”
Everyone was looking at them now. The Homecoming Princess was scowling, and several of the other women were smirking at Anna. Something didn’t feel right…particularly the way Joey’s buddies were all grinning that silly grin men share when one of their number is about to score…
But she didn’t have time to consider the implications because a large warm hand closed on hers, and she was pulled away and came to rest against a solid wall of masculine chest. In the split second between Bob pulling her towards him and Joey letting her go, Anna felt like a bone trapped between two slathering dogs. The idea infuriated her almost as much as all this blatant male attention thrilled her. So this is what all the other girls experienced, day after day? What must it be like to float through your teenaged years knowing you were admired and desired, instead of being a Mouse who was, when she got any attention at all, just the butt of jokes.
She turned the flare of anger on to her escort, needing to release the awful feeling on someone’s head. “What do you think you’re up to?” she whispered savagely. “I was enjoying talking to Joey..”
“You didn’t look like you were enjoying it,” Jed her, playing along with the Bob persona, “In fact, you looked like a mouse who’s realised she’s the snake’s dinner.”
And, dammit, that great ape of a football player looked like he was enjoying being draped all over Anna just a little too much!
Jed wondered where that thought which had suddenly bounced into his head came from, but he was distracted by Anna dragging on his arm.
“Come over here with me – we need a quiet word,” she said, smiling up at him seductively while her eyes burned with a very nasty looking fire.
Uh, uh – he’d obviously annoyed her by pulling her away from the football playing gorilla
… A delighted grin lit up his face.
“You can just wipe that grin off your face. I want to talk to you in a quiet spot, nothing else….” Anna growled.
“Aw, shucks, I thought maybe you wanted to make out like all the other kids are doing...”
Anna glanced around. The first quiet corner she’d spotted to have a little chat with her escort just happened to be littered with bodies, entangled with each other, two by two, all hidden
in the relative privacy afforded by the heavy velvet curtains of the stage. Her face burned. Of course she remembered this corner – a must at all high school dances, a spot where chaperones pretended to turn a blind eye on the grounds that kids kissing in the dance hall were less likely to get into anything more serious elsewhere.
Not that Anna had ever been to one of the intimate corners before. Certainly not while at high school. She’d usually been assigned to handing out cookies and cans of soda, and then dragooned into clean-up duty afterwards while the other kids took the long way home, entangled with one another, laughing and having fun.
But suddenly Anna was having fun. A whole lot of fun. Held against the warm length of Bob’s body, feeling his hands playing havoc on the skin of her back, she was caught up in a kiss so passionate that it should probably be X-rated, she thought. And she loved it, loved the feelings of heat and light that suffused her as their tongues touched and danced, their bodies pressing tighter and tighter together until she wanted to never be apart…
And that thought pushed through her fogged brain and pulled her out of the daydream. She was caught in a deep embrace with a man she was paying for his services.
What was she thinking of hearing ‘happily ever after’ jingles in her head?
This relationship wasn’t even going to get past first base, let alone…let alone what? Anna shook her head and decided that he was to blame.
“What on earth are you doing?” she gasped when she was able to draw breath.
To give him credit, his breathing was a little ragged, too.
“Just doing what you asked, Ma’am. You said pay attention to you…and I thought that’s what I was doing.”
“Well, pay a little less attention. I want to be escorted, not smothered. I want to make these people jealous and be able to enjoy that reaction, not be caught up in a snogfest with a man I’ll never see again.”
Then she sniffed and walked away.
***
Jed felt her words like a hammer blow. He’d been enjoying the feel of her in his arms. He knew the whole situation was crazy – the woman had virtually kidnapped him off the streets, ordered him to stay close to her, to pay attention to her – and he was having a lot of fun.
But now she’d changed her mind. He’d kissed her and suddenly she was kissing him off! Her stiff back as she walked away was enough of a statement.
‘Back off, jerk,’
she was saying without speaking.
Maybe he should just walk out and leave her. Maybe he’d just have a glass of beer or two and enjoy the company of the other pretty women.
Then he’d leave. Let snooty Ms Anna Findlay find her own way home.
Perhaps with Joey the Jock.
But, no. Somehow he didn’t like that idea at all.
Jed took a deep draught of his beer.
CHAPTER THREE
He didn’t leave, of course. He stayed and listened to the snatches of conversation around him as he tried to figure out what was going on. Not that he lacked for distractions - he was a magnet for a coterie of glammed-up women and a few brave men who recognised him and were genuinely interested to make his acquaintance
The fact that so many people recognised him made him even more suspicious of Anna’s motives for her behaviour. He loved a mystery – solving puzzles and bringing hidden things to light were two of the reasons he’d gone into journalism - and this was as an incentive to ask questions of his own audience. Subtly, of course.
And it certainly didn’t hurt that many of his interviewees were pretty women who were obviously thrilled to spill their guts to him while one or two dropped broad hints that they wouldn’t mind taking a real live celebrity home with them after the dance. Jed sighed. The high divorce rate amongst the 20 - 35 age group was one of the reasons he’d decided to stay single - hell, there was no shortage of sexy, intelligent companions. Why spoil it all by getting married, getting mad, and getting divorced?
His father despaired of him, of course. The old man wanted grandchildren, wanted to know that the family ranch would be handed down to another generation. Jed’s lawyer father had long dreamt of returning to the land his great grandfather had settled back in Texas, but his wife wouldn’t hear of it. The old man had to content himself with spending vacations there, occasionally riding horseback there. The rest of the time he rode the range in his dreams.
So he’d laid the dream of ranching on Jed, but Jed wasn’t even sure he’d be willing to take over the property. He loved his work, loved the power of being even a lower-level celebrity in
the goldfish bowl of eastern New York State. Rarely did he miss the feel of a horse between his legs, the restless pacing after a herd to be branded and corralled.
Maybe if he had a family of his own it would be different…Aware his thoughts were going round and round in dangerous circles, he dragged his attention back to the pretty, long-legged redhead beside him. Maria had the look of a country singer about her, and his guess was right.
“I’m just putting out my very first CD,” she gushed into his ear, “And I’d really appreciate any advice you have on getting publicity, Mr Walker.”
Which roughly translated meant:
what do I have to do to get on television?
It seemed that was the question on everyone’s lips these days. Not content with Andy Warhol’s ‘15 minutes of fame’, people now wanted their own spot on a hot talk show.
“So, were you good friends with Anna when she was at school?” he asked the general group, ignoring the redhead’s pout as he ignored her question.
Several people nodded. “Yes, Anna was adorable even at school. One of the cutest, smartest girls in class,” a plump woman with pretty eyes and a white streak in her dark hair declared. Several others nodded enthusiastically.
“Is that why you all called her the Mouse?” Jed asked.
There were several embarrassed glances, and the plump one had the good grace to blush faintly. Jed thought it made her look very pretty, the faint flush along her creamy cheekbones…until she declared: “Oh, my, she was so cute. That’s why we called her Mouse. She was very quiet, too.”
“Oh, yes, quiet as a mouse!” giggled the would-be country singer.
“But who’d have thought she’d have written a book like that!” The football jock who’d been chatting to Anna – no, draped all over Anna – snorted.
“Yah, right – man, if I’d known she knew stuff like that, I’d have been the first to offer to help her with her research!”
“And she surely has done a lot of research to write like that!”
“Yeah, who’d have thought it of our little Mouse?”
“I’m not sure I follow you,” Jed said coldly.
“Hey, well, guy, you must have been helping her work out the stuff that’s in her book! Or aren’t you part of Generation X?”
“Generation X?” Jed was puzzled now. Anna had written a book about Generation X? Well, she’d hardly have been the first writer to do that…
“Yeah – ‘Having It All: Sex & Generation X” hit the best seller lists for weeks – little Anna must be raking in the dough!”
“But don’t you think it’s…well, not quite right, not quite moral, somehow, to write a book like that? I mean, what did she have to do to get those details…and whatever must her poor parents think!” The plump one said in a concerned voice, her face alight with atavistic interest.
“Ah, remember – Anna’s an orphan – her parents were killed in that train accident when she was in fourth grade – she lived in a foster home or two while she finished school.”
“That’s right – Mr And Mrs Adams fostered her – jeez, I bet that pious old biddy is grinding her teeth over Anna’s success.”
“And over the content of Anna’s book. Anna didn’t do any of her research while she lived with the Adams, that’s for sure!”
“So, Mr, Walker – what about you – are you squiring Anna around for a long time, or are you new on her list of conquests?”
Jed wanted to smash the man’s grinning face – to smash all the grinning faces in front of him. Because he’d been fooled. He’d let that gorgeous, vulnerable exterior fool him good. Anna was no shrinking violet – she was the author of a veritable sex manual. And she hadn’t kidnapped him accident – She must have plotted and planned for weeks. She wanted to use him as she’d no doubt used lots of other guys – as stepping stones to her own little hall of fame….
***
Anna looked over to where Bob stood, surrounded by a crowd of mostly women who seemed to be hanging on his every word.
Dammit, you’d think he was the celebrity, not me!
Not that she wasn’t getting lots of attention. Most of the guys who wouldn’t have been seen dead talking to her ten years ago were now slathering over her – and yet she felt totally empty.
In fact, she couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to the big old clock over the basketball hoop on the far wall. That’s when they weren’t straying to see what her popular escort was up to.
He
certainly seemed to be having lots of fun, anyway. She had to work hard at fending off the wondering palms of men who were no strangers to her, while the stranger she was paying – and paying well – for an evening of companionship was chatting up every other woman in the room.
Make no mistake about it; Mrs Rogers at the Agency was going to hear all about this tomorrow.
Be darned if she wasn’t thinking she’d ask for her money back – if her escort was attending to every other female BUT her, why should she pay the fee? Of course, he was dressed to the nines in a tuxedo, had rented a gorgeous luxury car, and he’d certainly made the effort to fit the bill. In fact, when she saw him first, she’d known he was exactly what she wanted.
Oh, yes, she wanted him all right
. Wow – look at those shoulders, that flat chest, the strong arms…and those eyes! Oh, yes, those eyes, the smooth-shaven cheeks with the strong jaw that she’d love to run her fingers over…He looked confident and competent and she’d be willing to bet he was dynamite in bed.