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“Yes, as a matter of fact I do have a boyfriend.”
Chuck knocked his index finger against the edge of his desk. “Well, work will just have to take precedence. If he doesn’t know that already, he’ll just have to learn.”
“Agreed.”
“Then you’ll cancel your plans.”
“Ah, no.”
“Jenkins,” he said sternly, “this is your job. I want you at that dinner Friday night!”
She grabbed at the proverbial straw. “Dinner! Well, dinner, yes, I can probably swing that. I’ll just, uh...”
Chuck’s eyes narrowed, lending him the air of a truculent pig, but Denise was well aware that it would be unwise to underestimate him. “Bring him along?” he suggested smoothly, and the hair on the back of her neck stood up.
She had not the faintest idea what he was planning, but no doubt he had something up his sleeve. The Chuck she knew didn’t take kindly to being thwarted in anything. She gulped, trying to cudgel her reluctant brain into giving her a solution, while Chuck warmed to his own scheme.
“By all means, bring him along! It’ll be a pleasure to meet him. I insist. Really.”
She felt like a rat trapped on a sinking ship, but if she had to choose, she’d just as soon go down with the ship as have to put herself into Chuck’s hands in order to escape it. Coolly, she inclined her head in acceptance of his “invitation.” It was only after she’d left his office some minutes later that-she realized her little plan had one glaring flaw.
She didn’t have a date on Friday, let alone a boyfriend.
It was, of course, the obvious solution, not so much because they were friends but because, more pointedly, he was the only single man she knew in the whole area! Moreover, something told her that he would not let her down. She could count on Morgan Holt to come to the rescue, but could she count on him not to take advantage or misconstrue? That was another question entirely. Yet she effectively had no choice. She needed a date for Friday night, a pretend boyfriend, and Morgan Holt was the only candidate. Quaking inwardly, she cleared her throat, inhaled deeply through her nose and shook her limbs, much as if she were preparing for a big match or an especially unnerving sales presentation. The small ritual behind her, she lifted her hand and knocked on the door.
A male voice called faintly from a distance through the door that he was coming. Denise folded her arms and stepped back, looking around the wide porch with its gingerbread trimming and fresh white paint contrasting with the pale sky blue of the house itself. It was really a lovely old home, not at all what she’d have picked out for herself but very much Morgan Holt. Somehow she sensed the love and pride that had gone into every brush stroke and swing of the hammer. He must have worked for years to refurbish the place. The elegant mahogany door with its large oval of beveled glass swung inward, and Denise jerked around, pasting a smile on her face.
“Hey! Good to see you. Come on in!” Morgan backed away from the door and allowed her to step past. “Man, it’s beautiful out there, isn’t it?” He inhaled deeply as he pushed the door closed. “I love this time of year. The leaves will start turning soon. Meanwhile the days are perfect and the nights are cool enough for a fire. What more could you want?”
“Nothing!” She tossed up her hands in a frivolous gesture so unlike her that she immediately regretted it. Morgan composed his squarely chiseled face and lifted a hand to indicate the first room immediately off the hall.
“Let’s sit down, and you can tell me what’s wrong.”
Denise closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again and nodded at the same time as she looked around her. The hall was all polished wood and brass and sweeping stairs with marble treads and banisters. A large mirror, framed in heavy, ornately carved wood, hung on one wall, an old-fashioned hall tree stood opposite it. Between them a small, graceful chandelier hung from the ceiling, its brass inlaid with delicate cameos.
She followed Morgan into the living room. He put her on the couch and sat down opposite her on a wing chair, pulling it close and leaning forward with forearms braced against his knees. She crossed her ankles demurely and folded her hands in her lap, her heart beating a heavy rhythm.
“Okay,” he said, “now what’s wrong?”
She put on a smile, her voice falsely bright. “Nothing’s wrong. I just thought you might like to join me and some, uh, other people for dinner...Friday night.”
“Friday night,” he echoed thoughtfully.
“At the Ozark Springs Inn,” she added hurriedly. “I know it’s late notice, but I promised I’d bring an, er, a friend. Honestly, Morgan, I’d be so appreciative if you could manage—”
“Okay,” he said. “Now what’s the rest of it?”
She was still hung on the okay. Breathless with relief, she sank back against the pillows and closed her eyes. “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate—”
“Just tell me what’s going on.”
She sat upright again, suddenly believing that it was going to be all right, after all. “Actually,” she said, almost laughing in her relief, “I don’t need a date so much as I need a boyfriend. Oh, not that I want one, you understand! It’s just that, well, my boss is a throwback to a less enlightened age, to put it politely. In fact, if I was willing to give up my career, I could nail him on sexual harassment charges. But I figure the best justice would be to get promoted despite him, maybe over him, and then don’t think I wouldn’t can his—Well, you get my meaning, I’m sure.”
She chuckled, expecting him to join her. He didn’t. Instead he said, “I take it your boss will be joining us for dinner.”
“Yes, and thank God that’s all! He had the brass to try to pull off an overnight stay at the inn, which is why I told him that I already had plans.”
“Uh-huh, and whose idea was the boyfriend?”
“His, actually. He just sort of jumped to that conclusion, and I let him think I had one in hopes it would make him think twice about planning any more overnight jaunts. Then he insisted that I bring you along for dinner. I mean, the boyfriend, not you necessarily. It’s just that I don’t know anyone else around here that I could ask to pretend with me. You do understand?”
He smiled then, but rather perfunctorily. “Sure. No problem.”
She sighed, a hand pressed to her chest. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“Hey, it’s no biggie. I like the Ozark Springs Inn.”
“Oh, good. I’ve never been myself, but now I can look forward to it. Oh, I should tell you that it’s primarily a business dinner. We’ve brought on a new retailer, and the company rep will be there with us.”
Morgan nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fine. Is it just the four of us then?”
She pulled a face. “Chuck apparently doesn’t bring his wife along to these things. Uh, Chuck, that’s my boss.”
Morgan nodded again. “Makes sense. No doubt having the little wife along would cramp his style.”
“No doubt,” Denise agreed drily. “One more thing. I think Chuck’s planning something. When he insisted I bring along this fictitious boyfriend, he had a certain gleam in his eye, like he’s got an ace up his sleeve. Don’t be surprised if he does or says something outrageous.”
“Something that would make a real boyfriend walk out maybe?” Morgan asked thoughtfully.
Denise nodded with satisfaction. “That would be my best guess.”
Morgan shrugged. “No problem.”
“You’re sure?”
“I understand sharks like Chuck. Trust me.”
Oddly, she did. “I can’t thank you enough for this. I’ll be eternally grateful.”
“Hey, what are friends for?” Straightening, he rubbed his hands together in that exuberant way of his. “Now, can I get you a drink?”
“Oh, no, thank you. I don’t drink much beyond a glass of wine with my dinner. It just seems to go straight to my head.”
“Ah, you’re wise to avoid it then.”
“Yes, well, I’d better go,” she said, growing uncomfortable again. “Smithson will be wanting his dinner.”
“Speaking of dinner,” he said, coming to his feet at the same instant she did, “what time Friday should I be ready?”
“I don’t really know. The reservations are for seventhirty, but as I’ve never been to the inn, I can’t say how long it will take us to get there.”
“It’s quite a drive,” he said, “about forty minutes. How about if I pick you up around a quarter to seven?”
“Oh, you don’t have to pick me up.”
“Nonsense. I’m your date, remember. How would it look if your boyfriend just met you there?”
“Yes, I guess that wouldn’t make quite the right impression. We can take my car, if you like.”
“Nah, I’ll just back the old Mercedes out of the garage. It doesn’t get much use anymore. The drive will do it good.”
“All right, if you’re sure.”
“My pleasure.”
She turned and walked into the entry hall, saying, “You’ve been out to the Inn. What should I wear? Would a cocktail dress be too much?”
“No, I don’t think so. I assume half the purpose of this dinner is to impress the new client, so to speak.”
“Right. Well, then, I’ll see you Friday.”
“Friday,” he said, opening the door for her.
She strolled out onto the porch. Dusk was already deepening into night. The smell of wood smoke permeated the chill. “Your home is lovely,” she told him in parting.
“Thanks.” He leaned a shoulder against the door frame and slid his hands into his pockets watching her as she descended the stairs to the walkway.
She sent him a last smile and hurried toward her apartment, wondering why her heart was again beating with such quick intensity. But this was not dread. This was... Dare she call it anticipation? And why not? Something told her that she’d just checkmated old Chuck, and come Friday, he’d know it. She was humming when she let herself into the apartment. She hummed all the way to Friday.
She opened the door to a kind of casual elegance she’d seldom seen in a man, and for a moment it held her spellbound. Perhaps it was the simplicity of a pale gray crewneck sweater worn beneath a gray silk jacket above classic black, pleated trousers. Or perhaps what held her spellbound was the way the grays shamelessly brought out the silver at his temples and the electric blue of his eyes; or maybe it was the slightly tousled look of his hair, worn short and sleek and sharply tailored, except in the very front, where it parted uncertainly in the middle and fell in two curving locks to his eyebrows. He looked relaxed and, at the same time, groomed within an inch of his life and utterly, totally male.
She didn’t know how long she might have stood there and stared if he hadn’t done a slow once-over, taken a step back and exclaimed, “Wow!”
She felt her own perusal turned back at her and literally blushed. She really didn’t want him to know how much time she had spent getting ready for this make-believe event, and yet she was glad that she hadn’t played down her appearance. The little red crepe slip dress with its gently flared skirt that swirled softly several inches above her knees was simple but classic. With spaghetti straps, it was a little light for a cool autumn evening, but she had augmented it with a long, clingy wrap of red organza, which at the moment was draped loosely about her shoulders and arms, hanging down almost to the tops of her red velvet heels and calling attention, she hoped, to slender ankles encased in the sheerest of black stockings. She hadn’t known quite what to do with her hair, whether to wear it down or rolled into a classic French twist. In the end, she’d settled for something in between, a loose chignon pinned at the crown of her head with lots of long tendrils floating down around her face and shoulders. Her only jewelry consisted of pearl drops at her earlobes, a teensy gold chain about her throat and a pearl and rhinestone brooch that she wore pinned in her hair.
Apparently she had done well. Perhaps she had even overdone it. Morgan certainly seemed to find her appearance more than merely acceptable, and, for some reason, that sent a thrill down the back of her neck all the way to her toes. At least she hadn’t outdone him, and to let him know that she fully appreciated that fact, she said to him, “You look wonderful!” at the same exact moment that he said it to her. Then they both laughed and said, “Thank you.”
More laughter followed, and then he said, “Frankly, I was afraid you’d look all buttoned down the way you do when you leave for work in the mornings, not that you don’t look good then, too, but, well, it wouldn’t aid the illusion, so to speak.”
“The illusion?”
“Of a woman in love,” he said, leaning forward slightly. “You have a boyfriend, remember, not just a racquetball buddy—speaking of which, I think I deserve a rematch. I gave you a dam good game, if you’ll recall.” She smiled, glad to have a “friendly” topic to discuss. “So you did. Give me another one tonight, and you’re on.”
“It’s a done deal,” he assured her as she gathered up her tiny, red velvet handbag. Stepping aside, he allowed her to move past him and out into the cool night. While she adjusted her wrap, covering her head and looping the ends just so about her shoulders, he locked the door and pushed it closed. Smithson jumped up into the window as they walked past, yowling as if he thought it was expected of him, then settling down to groom himself with leisurely strokes of his tongue. Likewise, Reiver woofed from his station on the porch.
“That’s his protective post,” Morgan informed her. “He always stations himself there when I’m gone.”
“I’ve noticed that,” Denise told him, and then wondered if she should have, but he seemed to find nothing remarkable about her taking note of his comings and goings. He talked on about the dog.
“It’s part of his nature,” Morgan said. “He’ll stay right there until I get home and let him into the house for the night.”
“He sleeps in your house?”
“Right in front of my son’s bedroom door. It’s as if he knows instinctively what means most to me and seeks to protect that.”
“I’ve never seen your son. Does he get to visit often.”
“Radley’s up here all the time. You just probably didn’t realize who he was.”
“He lives close then?”
“He’s a sophomore at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Still.”
“Still?”
Morgan chuckled. “Rad’s not real serious about his course work. He’s twenty already, and his mother thinks he’s studying to be a burn just because he doesn’t know yet what he wants to do. Hell, I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I was thirty-eight.”
They had reached the polished black automobile sitting in front of the old carriage house at the edge of the property. “And just what is it exactly that you are doing?” she asked as he opened the passenger door for her.
He laughed again, easily, lightly. “Whatever I damned well please. Currently that means remodeling an old house up on Hanson Creek for resale.”
“Ah.”
He handed her into the car, then bent over her, hands braced on the door frame and the door itself. “It doesn’t compute for you, does it? I’ll bet you made a five-year plan and stuck to it every step of the way.”
She didn’t quite know what to say to that, for he was right, of course. Finally she asked, “Is that bad?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Unless you think it’s the only way to live and expect everyone else to think so, too.”
She digested that while he came around and got in behind the steering wheel. Okay, maybe she had been pretty sure that it was the only way she could get what she wanted, and it had worked, so far as it went. So maybe she didn’t quite understand why everyone else didn’t do it, and maybe she had assumed that everyone just naturally wanted what she did. Was something wrong with that? Had she closed her mind to everything else? Her sister surely thought so. And perhaps her parents, now that she thought about it. But she was well into the second five-year plan, and everything was going along according to schedule, so why should she abandon her goals now? Of course she shouldn’t.
On the other hand, when was the last time she’d really enjoyed herself? When had she last been happy? The answer to that lay buried back home in Kansas City, which meant, she reminded herself, that real happiness was forever out of her reach. What, after all, did she have left but her career? The answer was obvious, and yet it did not seem to have quite the bleakness about it that it usually did.
She didn’t know whether to be alarmed or encouraged by that. She could never, would never, forget her son or the loss of him. So how could the knowledge that he was gone be any less shocking or sharp today than it had been yesterday? With that worrisome enigma on her mind, she almost missed the sight of Fayetteville spread like a swatch of stars in the Ozark foothills, down one eastern slope and into the flat valley below then north in a milky flow to Springdale and Rogers and the cuts and gullies beyond. Thankfully, Morgan didn’t let her miss it.
“This is one of my favorite sights,” he said, jolting her from her reverie. “When I was a kid, I used to lie on my belly and look out the window of my attic room at the valley below and imagine what everyone in town was up to. It seemed another world even though we bused down every day to school.”
“We?”
“My sister and I.”
“I have a sister.”
“Older or younger?”
“Younger.”
“Me, too.”
