This Heart of Mine (5 page)

Unfortunately, he laughed instead of being offended. "I date American women, too."

"Not many, I'll bet."

"Did anybody ever mention that you're nosy?"

"I'm a writer. It goes with the profession." Maybe it was her imagination, but he didn't look as restless as when he'd sat down, so she decided to keep poking. "Tell me about your family."

"Not much to tell. I'm a PK."

Prize kisser
? "Pathetic klutz?"

He grinned and crossed his ankles on the edge of the coffee table. "Preacher's kid. Fourth generation, depending on how you count."

"Oh, yes. I remember reading that. Fourth generation, huh?"

"My father was a Methodist minister, son of a Methodist minister, who was the grandson of one of the old Methodist circuit riders who carried the gospel into the wilderness."

"That must be where your daredevil blood comes from. The circuit rider."

"It sure didn't come from my father. A great guy, but not exactly what you'd call a risk taker. Pretty much an egghead." He smiled. "Like you. Except more polite."

She ignored that. "He's no longer alive?"

"He died about six years ago. He was fifty-one when I was born."

"What about your mother?"

"I lost her eighteen months ago. She was older, too. A big reader, the head of the historical society, into genealogy. Summers were the highlight of my parents' lives."

"Skinny-dipping in the Bahamas?"

He laughed. "Not quite. We all went to a Methodist church campground in northern Michigan. It's been in my family for generations."

"Your family owned a campground?"

"Complete with cabins and a big old wooden Tabernacle for church services. I had to go with them every summer until I was fifteen, and then I rebelled."

"They must have wondered how they hatched you."

His eyes grew shuttered. "Every day. What about you?"

"An orphan." She said the word lightly, the way she always did when anyone asked, but it felt lumpy.

"I thought Bert only married Vegas showgirls." The way his eyes swept from her crimson hair to linger on her modest chest told her he didn't believe she could have sequins in her gene pool.

"My mother was in the chorus at The Sands. She was Bert's third wife, and she died when I was two. She was flying to Aspen to celebrate her divorce."

"You and Phoebe didn't have the same mother?"

"No. Phoebe's mother was his first wife. She was in the chorus at The Flamingo."

"I never met Bert Somerville, but from what I've heard, he wasn't an easy man to live with."

"Fortunately, he sent me off to boarding school when I was five. Before that, I remember a stream of very attractive nannies."

"Interesting." He dropped his feet from the coffee table and picked up the pair of silver-framed Revo sunglasses he'd left there. Molly gazed at them with envy. Two hundred and seventy dollars at Marshall Field's.

 
Daphne set the sunglasses that had fallen from Benny's pocket on her own nose and bent over to admire her reflection in the pond.
Parfait
! (She believed French was the best language for contemplating personal appearance.)

"Hey!" Benny called out from behind her.

Plop
! The sunglasses slid from her nose into the pond.

Kevin rose from the couch, and she could feel his energy filling the room. "Where are you going?" she asked.

"Out for a while. I need some fresh air."

"Out where?"

He folded in the stems of his sunglasses, the motion deliberate. "It's been nice talking to you, but I think I've had enough questions from management for now."

"I told you. I'm not management."

"You've got a financial stake in the Stars. In my book that makes you management."

"Okay. So management wants to know where you're going."

"skiing. Do you have a problem with that?"

No, but she was fairly sure Dan would. "There's just one alpine ski area around here, and the drop is only a hundred and twenty feet. That's not enough challenge for you."

"Damn."

She concealed her amusement.

"I'll go cross-country, then," he said. "I've heard there are some world class trails up here."

"Not enough snow."

"I'm going to find that
airfield
?" He shot toward the coat closet.

"No! We'll—we'll hike."

"Hike?" He looked as if she'd suggested bird-watching.

She thought fast. "There's a really treacherous path along the bluffs. It's so dangerous that it's closed off when there's wind or even a hint of snow, but I know a back way to get to it. Except you need to be really sure you want to do this. It's narrow and icy, and the slightest misstep could send you plunging to your death."

"You're making this up."

"I don't have that much imagination."

"You're a writer."

"Children's books. They're completely nonviolent. Now, if you want to stand around and talk all morning, that's up to you. But I'd like a little adventure."

She'd finally caught his interest.

"Let's get to it, then."

They had a good time on their hike, even though Molly never quite managed to locate the treacherous path she'd promised Kevin—maybe because she'd invented it. Still, the bluff they crossed was bitterly cold and windy, so he didn't complain too much. He even reached out to take her hand on an icy stretch, but she wasn't that foolish. Instead, she gave him a snooty look and told him he'd have to manage on his own because she wasn't going to prop him up every time he saw a little ice and got scared.

He'd laughed and climbed up on a slippery pile of rocks. The sight of him facing the winter-gray water, head thrown back, wind tearing through that dark blond hair had stolen her breath.

For the rest of their walk she'd forgotten to be obnoxious, and they had far too much fun. By the time they returned to the house, her teeth were chattering from the cold, but every womanly part of her burned.

He shrugged out of his coat and rubbed his hands. "I wouldn't mind using your hot tub."

And she wouldn't mind using his hot body. "Go ahead. I have to get back to work." As Molly rushed toward the loft, she found herself remembering what Phoebe had once said to her.

When you're raised as we were, Moll, casual sex is a snake pit. We need a love that's soul-deep, and I'm here to testify that you don't find it by bed-hopping.

Although Molly had never bed-hopped, she knew that Phoebe was right. Except what was a twenty-seven-year-old woman with a healthy body, but no soul-deep love, supposed to do? If only Kevin had acted shallow and stupid on their walk… but he hadn't talked about football once. Instead, they'd talked about books, living in Chicago, and their mutual passion for
This Is Spinal Tap
.

She couldn't concentrate on Daphne, so she flipped open her laptop to work on "Making Out—How Far to Go?" The subject depressed her even more.

By her junior year at Northwestern she'd grown sick of waiting for her Great Love Story to come along, so she'd decided to forget about soul-deep love and settle for soul-deep caring with a boy she'd been dating for a month. But losing her virginity had been a mistake. The affair had left her depressed, and she knew that Phoebe had been right. She wasn't made for casual sex.

A few years later she'd convinced herself she finally cared enough about a man to try again. He'd been intelligent and charming, but the wrenching sadness following the affair had taken months to fade.

She'd had a number of boyfriends since then, but no lovers, and she'd done her best to sublimate her sex drive with hard work and good friends. Chastity might be old-fashioned, but sex was an emotional quagmire for a woman who hadn't known love until she was fifteen. So why did she keep thinking about it, especially with Kevin Tucker in the house?

Because she was only human, and the Stars quarterback was a delectable piece of body candy, a walking aphrodisiac, a grown-up toy boy. She moaned, glared at her keyboard, and forced herself to concentrate.

At five she heard him leave the house. By seven "Making Out—How Far to Go?" was nearly done. Unfortunately, the subject had left her edgy and more than a little aroused. She called Janine, but her friend wasn't home, so she went down-stairs and stared at herself in the small kitchen mirror. It was too late for the stores to be open, or she could have run out for hair color. Maybe she'd just cut it. That crew cut a few years ago hadn't been so bad.

She was lying to herself. It had been horrible.

She grabbed a Lean Cuisine instead of the scissors and ate at the kitchen counter. Afterward she dug the marshmallows out of a carton of Rocky Road ice cream. Finally she grabbed her drawing pad and settled in front of the fireplace to sketch. But she hadn't slept well, and before long her lids grew heavy. Kevin's arrival sometime after midnight made her bolt up.

"Hey, Daphne."

She rubbed her eyes. "Hello, Karl."

He hung his coat on the back of a chair. It reeked of perfume. "This thing needs to air out."

"I'll say." Jealousy gnawed at her. While she'd been drooling over Kevin's body and obsessing about her own hangups, she'd ignored one important fact: He hadn't shown the slightest interest in her. "You must have been busy," she said. "It smells like more than one brand. All of them domestic, or did you find an au pair somewhere?"

"I wasn't that lucky. The women were unfortunately American, and they all talked too much." His pointed look said she did, too.

"And I'll bet lots of the words had more than one syllable, so you probably have a headache." She needed to stop this. He wasn't nearly as dumb as she wanted him to be, and if she didn't watch herself, he was going to figure out exactly how much interest she took in his personal life.

He looked more aggravated than angry. "I happen to like to relax when I'm on a date. I don't want to debate world politics or discuss global warming or be forced to listen to people with unpredictable personal hygiene recite bad poetry."

"Gee, and those are all my favorite things."

He shook his head, then rose and stretched, lengthening that lean body vertebra by vertebra. He was already bored with her. Probably because she hadn't entertained him by reciting his career statistics.

"I'd better turn in," he said. "I'm taking off first thing tomorrow, so if I don't see you, thanks for the hospitality."

She managed a yawn. "
Ciao
, babycakes." She knew he had to get back for practice, but that didn't ease her disappointment.

He smiled. "Night, Daphne."

She watched him mount the stairs, the denim tightening around those lean legs, molding his narrow hips, muscles rippling beneath his T-shirt.

Oh, God, she was drooling! And she was Phi Beta Kappa!

She was also aching and restless, blazingly dissatisfied with everything in her life.

"Damn it!" She knocked her sketch pad to the floor, jumped to her feet, and made a beeline for the bathroom to stare at her hair. She was going to shave it off!

No! She didn't want to be bald, and this time she wouldn't let herself act crazy.

She moved purposefully to the video center and pulled out the remake of
The Parent Trap
. Her inner child loved watching the twins get their parents back together, and her outer child loved Dennis Quaid's smile.

Kevin had that same crooked smile.

Resolutely, she took his game film from the VCR, put in
The Parent Trap
, and settled back to watch.

By two o'clock in the morning, Hallie and Annie had reunited their parents, but Molly was more restless than ever. She began surfing through old movies and infomercials, only to pause as she heard the familiar theme song of the old show,
Lace, Inc
.

"Lace is on the case, oh yeah… Lace can solve the case, oh yeah
…" Two beautiful women ran across the screen, the sexy detectives Sable Drake and Ginger Hill.

Lace, Inc
. had been one of Molly's favorite shows as a child. She'd wanted to be Sable, the smart brunette, played by actress Mallory McCoy. Ginger was the redheaded sexpot karate expert.
Lace, Inc
. had been a jiggle show, but Molly hadn't cared about that. She'd simply enjoyed watching women beat up the bad guys for a change.

The opening credits showed Mallory McCoy first, then Lilly Sherman, who'd played Ginger Hill. Molly sat up straighter as she remembered a fragment of conversation she'd once overheard at Stars headquarters indicating that Lilly Sherman had some sort of connection with Kevin. She hadn't wanted anyone to know she was interested, so she didn't ask any questions. She studied the actress more carefully.

She wore her trademark tight pants, tube top, and high heels. Her long red hair curled around her shoulders, and her eyes batted seductively at the camera. Even with a dated hairstyle and big gold hoop earrings, she was a knockout.

Sherman must be in her forties by now, surely a little old to be one of Kevin's women, so what was their connection? A photograph she'd seen of the actress a few years ago showed that she'd gained weight since the television show. She was still a beautiful woman, though, so it was possible they'd had a fling.

Molly stabbed the remote, and a cosmetics commercial came on. Maybe that's what she needed. A complete makeover.

She flipped off the TV and headed upstairs. Somehow she didn't think a makeover would fix what was wrong with her.

After a hot shower she slipped into one of the Irish linen nightgowns she'd bought when she was rich. It still made her feel like a heroine in a Georgette Heyer novel. She carried her notepad to bed so she could think more about Daphne, but the surge of creativity she'd experienced that afternoon had vanished.

Roo snored softly at the foot of the bed. Molly told herself she was getting sleepy. She wasn't.

Maybe she could finish polishing her article, but as she made her way to the loft to get her laptop, she glanced into the guest bathroom. It had two doors—the one she was standing in and a second one across from it that led directly into the bedroom where he slept. That door was ajar.

Her restless, twitchy legs carried her onto the tile.

She saw a Louis Vuitton shaving kit sitting on the counter. She couldn't imagine Kevin buying it for himself, so it must have been a gift from one of his international beauties. She moved closer and saw a red toothbrush with crisp white bristles. He'd put the cap back on the tube of Aquafresh.

She brushed her fingertip over the lid of a column of deodorant, then reached for a frosted glass bottle of very expensive aftershave. She unscrewed the stopper and drew it to her nose. Did it smell like Kevin? He wasn't one of those men who drowned himself in cologne, and she hadn't gotten close enough to know for sure, but something familiar about the scent made her close her eyes and inhale more deeply. She shivered and set it down, then glanced into the open shaving kit.

Lying next to a bottle of ibuprofen and a tube of Neosporin was Kevin's Super Bowl ring. She knew he'd earned it in the early days of his career as Cal Bonner's backup. It surprised her to see a championship ring tossed so carelessly in the bottom of a shaving kit, but then everything she knew about Kevin said he wouldn't want to wear a ring that had been earned when someone else was in charge.

She began to move away, only to pause as she saw what else lay in the shaving kit.

A condom.

No big deal. Of course he'd carry condoms with him. He probably had a whole crate of them. She picked it up and studied it. It seemed to be an ordinary condom. So why was she staring at it?

This was insane! All day she'd been acting like a woman obsessed. If she didn't pull herself together, she'd be boiling a bunny just like crazy Glenn Close.

She winced.
Sorry, Daphne
.

One peek. That was it. She'd just take one peek at him sleeping and then she'd leave.

She moved toward the bedroom door and slowly pushed it open.