Woman in Blue

by Eileen Goudge

  Then he was greeting her at the door, all smiles. “So, you made it. My directions okay?”

  “Your directions were fine. I even found a parking spot.” She stepped into a room fragrant with cooking smells. Obviously they weren’t going out tonight. She cast a wry glance at him as he was taking her jacket. “So this is the neighborhood restaurant you were telling me about?”

  He flashed her a smile. “The place I had in mind was booked for a private party, so I decided to cook for you instead,” he explained as he hung her jacket in the small coat closet. “No guarantees on the food, but you can’t beat the location. Though it’s a shame I won’t be able to show you off. You look absolutely stunning.” He stepped back to admire her, and Lindsay felt her cheeks warm. “I have to confess, I don’t remember you being so tall.”

  She looked down at her feet. “It’s these shoes. They’re my sister’s, and frankly they’re killing me.”

  “In that case, why don’t you take them off? There’s no one around but us, and I promise I won’t tell.” He guided her to the sofa, where she sank down with a grateful sigh and eased off her shoes. Mellow jazz was playing on the stereo, and candles glowed. “There, that’s better, isn’t it? In fact, I think I’ll join you.” He slipped off his own shoes, a pair of brown suede driving mocs. “To be honest, I normally go barefoot around the house—one of the advantages of working for yourself.” His smoky-blue eyes crinkled in a smile, and he reached for the open wine bottle on the coffee table. “Can I offer you a glass of wine? If you prefer white, there’s a bottle of pinot grigio in the fridge.”

  “Red’s fine,” she told him.

  He poured them each a glass. “I have friends who own a vineyard in Santa Ynez,” he said. “They put out some very nice wines. This petite sirah is my favorite.”

  She took a sip, murmuring appreciatively, though she knew little about wine—one of the many things that set her apart from Randall. She glanced around the room. “I like your place. It has character.”

  “That it does.” He followed her gaze, taking in the snug interior, with its tongue-and-groove wainscoting and old cypress flooring that resembled the deck of a boat listing slightly at sea. Piles of books were stacked beside built-in bookshelves crammed with more books. A large Chinese urn by the door held a potted ficus. The chairs and sofa appeared comfortably worn. “I lease it from the lady in the big house—Mrs. Adler. Her husband was an artist. This used to be his studio.” He gestured toward a skillfully executed seascape on the wall. “That’s one of his. He was quite good, as you can see.”

  She gazed at the painting admiringly. “What became of him?”

  “He died some years ago. The poor old gal still hasn’t gotten over it. They were married fifty years.”

  Lindsay sipped her wine. All this talk of long-term devotion was prompting uneasy thoughts of Grant. She said brightly, “So tell me about the tour. Did you do a lot of signings?”

  “One in each city, and don’t even ask which cities because it’s all a blur at this point.”

  “Good turnouts?”

  “For the most part. Except this one—Cleveland, I think it was—where only two people showed up.” He gave a rueful laugh. “One of them must’ve felt sorry for me because he hung around the entire time. Turned out he was a tech geek, and when I told him I was looking to upgrade my laptop, he gave me the lowdown on which model to buy and where to get one at a discount. So even though I only sold a couple of books, I’d say it was a good night.”

  “I wish every author had that attitude,” she remarked. “Most are nice about it when there’s not much of a turnout, but a few get nasty. I’m not naming any names, but I once had an author go off in a huff. He was mad because he didn’t think I’d done enough to promote his event. As if it were my fault that it was pouring rain that night!”

  Randall shook his head. “Pretty shortsighted of him, I’d say. The first rule in touring is don’t shoot at your own troops. We need you as much as you need us. Let me guess—I’ll bet you didn’t exactly go out of your way to feature his book after he went off on you like that.”

  “I wouldn’t say I discouraged people from buying it, but they might have had a hard time finding it,” she confessed.

  Randall laughed and told her about the time early on, before the sales of his novel took off, when he’d sweet-talked a clerk at a Barnes & Noble into displaying Blood Money on the front table even though it wasn’t part of any paid promotion. She didn’t have to ask if the clerk had been female and found herself wondering if he’d gotten the woman to do more than prominently display his book. She felt a small stab of jealousy at the thought. Which was ludicrous, she told herself, since she hadn’t even known him then and certainly had no claim on him now. Besides which, she had a boyfriend.

  She once more resolutely pushed the thought of Grant from her mind, and soon she was coasting on the effects of the wine and Randall’s easy company. Seeing him in his well-worn easy chair, his stockinged feet propped on the ottoman, it was hard to imagine him as a hard-driving Wall Street financier.

  “Do you ever miss New York?” she asked.

  He shrugged. “I miss certain things about it. Like, oh, I don’t know, the smoked fish at Russ & Daughters and listening to live jazz at the Blue Note. Shakespeare in the Park on a summer night when the moon is out. But no, overall I don’t miss New York.”

  “How long did you live there?”

  “Almost fifteen years. I got a job on Wall Street right out of college.”

  “It says in your website bio that you were the youngest ever to make partner in your firm.”

  “Ah, yes, the fair-haired boy.” He raised his glass as if to the ghost of that dear, departed young man. “What isn’t in my bio is that I had to slave my ass off for ten years to get there. And for what? So I could make even more money that I was too busy to enjoy?”

  “So you up and left? Just like that?”

  “Just like that.” His expression darkened, and once again she wondered, as she had the night at Paolo’s, if there was something he wasn’t telling her about that chapter of his life. Abruptly he changed the subject. “But you didn’t come all this way to have me bore you with talk of finance. I want to know what you’ve been up to while I was away. How is it going with your sister?” He reached for the wine bottle and refilled their glasses.

  She sighed. “Okay, I guess … except when we’re at each other’s throats.” She told him about the fight they’d had earlier in the week and her concerns over the romance developing between Kerrie Ann and Ollie. “It’s not all her fault, though. She tries, in her own way. Part of it’s me—I tend to blow things out of proportion.”

  “Maybe because you’re not starting with a clean slate.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you had to take care of her when you were kids. I was just wondering if you might be harboring some old resentment.”

  Lindsay frowned. “Why would I hold that against my sister? She was just a baby at the time.”

  “It’s easy to blame the nearest target when the person you’re really mad at isn’t around.”

  His words hit home, and she nodded slowly. “Crystal, you mean. You could be right. I was angry at her for a long time. I guess my sister could be stirring up some of those old feelings. I hate to say it, but she reminds me of our mother in a lot of ways.” Lindsay tucked her feet under her, leaning into the sofa as she turned to face him. “What about you?” she asked. “Do you think you’ll ever stop being angry at your father?”

  Randall seemed to wrestle with his emotions before he replied, “It’s different with me. My old man’s still around to stoke the fire. Though I don’t see much of him, I confess. Every once in a while he’ll give me a call when he’s in town, and we’ll get together for a drink or a meal, but other than that he leaves me be.”

  “Still, he must be proud of what you’ve accomplished.”

  Randall shrugged and took a sip of his wine. “He doe
sn’t consider it a real job. He thinks I just got lucky. Not like when I was raking in the dough on Wall Street—that he could respect.”

  Lindsay found herself disliking this man whom she hadn’t even met. “It’s not just luck. First you had to write the book when you didn’t know if you would even get it published, much less hit it big. I had one author tell me it’s like performing to an empty auditorium.”

  Randall gave a knowing laugh. “More like performing to an audience of one, which is tougher in a way since I’m my own worst critic. I suppose it goes with the territory,” he added with a shrug.

  “Except most authors aren’t as talented as you.”

  He smiled. “Thanks. I just hope you think as highly of my cooking. Shall we?” He rose, extending a hand to help her up. “Supper’s basically ready. I just have to throw a few things together.”

  Lindsay started to put her shoes back on, but he stopped her, saying, “No sense in being uncomfortable. Besides, I like you this way—it suits you.” He regarded her for a long moment, his eyes communicating some unspoken emotion, then he turned and led the way into an alcove off the kitchen, where a small table was set for two.

  Lindsay was grateful when he disappeared into the kitchen. It gave her a chance to collect herself.

  Randall reappeared a few minutes later carrying a tray on which sat a conical clay tagine. He lifted the lid to reveal a mound of fragrant curried-chicken couscous and spooned some onto her plate. After she’d pronounced it delicious, he said, “Good, because it’s practically the only thing I know how to make.” He explained that he’d once signed up for a cooking course but ended up attending only one session. He winked. “Don’t tell anyone, though. My friends all think I’m a gourmet cook.”

  She smiled. “Don’t worry; your secret is safe with me.”

  He passed her a basket of warm pita bread. “Ever been to Morocco? It’s a fascinating place.”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never been anywhere, really. Mostly I just read about all the places I’d like go to someday.” She glanced up at him shyly. “I must seem awfully provincial.”

  “Not in the least,” he said. “You just haven’t had the opportunity to travel. But all those places will still be there when you do get around to visiting them. So,” he asked, leaning back in his chair, “where would you most like to go if you had to choose just one?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I’ve always wanted to see Russia.”

  “Ah, the land of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.”

  She smiled. “What can I say? Anna Karenina was my introduction to literature when I was fifteen. I thought it was the most brilliant novel ever written. In some ways, I still do.”

  “Even though it ends tragically?”

  “She chose love over what society expected of her. I see that as more brave than tragic.”

  “I didn’t know you were such a romantic.” His tone was teasing, but the gaze he directed at her across the table was as intimate as an embrace. She felt a light shiver go through her.

  “Blame it on Tolstoy,” she tossed back lightly. She didn’t dare say more. In the mood she was in right now, flushed with the wine and Randall’s company, it wouldn’t take much for her to do as Anna Karenina had and throw caution to the winds.

  After supper was over and the dishes cleared away, they retired to the living room for coffee and dessert—tiny cups of espresso and amaretti biscuits. She lingered over the first cup but said no to a second, murmuring, with some reluctance, that she ought to start thinking about heading back home. Before she could get up, he stilled her with a hand on her arm. “No, don’t go—not yet.” He paused, smiling at the trepidation that must have been evident on her face. “Don’t worry. I wasn’t planning to seduce you,” he said, though his eyes told a different story. “I have a favor to ask. Feel free to say no if you think I’m imposing.”

  She was intrigued. “I doubt I’d think that. But I suppose you should tell me what it is before I promise you the moon.”

  “I wondered if you’d take a look at the novel I’m working on. I’m only a few chapters into it, and I haven’t shown it to anyone yet, not even my editor. I trust you to give me an honest opinion.”

  “I’d be honored,” she said.

  Minutes later she was ensconced in the bedroom in back that doubled as his study, absorbed in the pages he’d given her to read. It wasn’t at all what she’d expected. Unlike the pulse-pounding thrill ride that was Blood Money, this one had a slow, almost elegiac quality. She was immediately hooked nonetheless by the story of a teenaged boy, presumably a runaway, hitchhiking along a lonely stretch of highway in the pouring rain. The writing alone made her want to read on. It was so evocative that she felt the boy’s exhaustion and fear of whatever he was running from. She felt the loneliness of the old man who stopped to give him a ride as palpably as if she’d been in that car, the rain sheeting down too fast for the windshield wipers to keep up with it. When she was done, she went in search of Randall, whom she found loading another stack of CDs into the player.

  “It’s good,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t give me the whole thing to read or I’d have been up all night.”

  He smiled and walked over to her, taking her in his arms. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to stay the night anyway?” he asked softly. “I can’t offer you the whole manuscript to read, but I know the author, and he might be persuaded to tell you how it ends.”

  He reached for her hand and brought it to his mouth, pressing his lips to her upturned palm. Lindsay began to tremble. She might have been standing there without a stitch on for how deliciously exposed she felt. She couldn’t move; she could scarcely draw a breath. Any thoughts of an early departure, or of her boyfriend, faded from her mind. When he brought his lips to her mouth, it was no accident this time. The effect was electrifying. She had never before been kissed like this, as thoroughly and seductively as Anna by Vronsky. She sensed he was taking his time because he saw this not as the end of the evening but as the beginning in some way. Lindsay felt it, too, that quickening inside, like the point in a novel where she’d think, This is where it gets good.

  She was so carried away, she was scarcely conscious of moving into the bedroom or of their clothes coming off. Both seemed to happen of their own accord. Then came a succession of exquisite sensations, each one melting into the next, as they lay tangled together on the bed. There was only Randall’s touch and the brush of his lips as he caressed every newly awakened inch of her. She stroked him, too, trailing her fingers over his muscular chest, with its mat of curly hair, down to where his tan line ended and the pale flesh began … and below.

  When he finally entered her, she tilted her hips to meet his thrust. Then they were two people moving as one. For Lindsay, it was a revelation. With other lovers—even Grant—it had been good but never this good. This was on a whole other plane. She felt a connection to Randall that was more than mere desire, that had its roots in something deeper.

  Then she was coming in a blinding rush, and moments later he came, too, with a sharp cry of release. Afterward he didn’t pull out right away. He held her tightly, as if fearful that she would slip away altogether once they drew apart. She could feel his breath coming in soft, noiseless bursts against her ear. Neither of them spoke. There was no need.

  Even after they drew apart, they remained close, facing each other with their noses almost touching. Close enough for her to see, in the faint light spilling in from the hallway, the bristly patch on his jaw, the size of a small coin, where he’d missed a spot shaving.

  “Did you feel that?” he murmured, his lips curling in a sleepy smile.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I’d give it about a nine point oh on the Richter scale.”

  She chuckled softly. “A best-selling novelist, and the best you can come up with is an earthquake metaphor?”

  “Would a tsunami work better?”

  “Trite.”

  “Okay, we’ll just have to sett
le on mind-blowing, then. Not very original, I know, but it’s the best I can do. My circuits are pretty fried.”

  She snuggled in close so that her head was nestled against his chest. For a long while, she was content to just lie there, basking in the afterglow and listening to Randall’s heartbeat as it gradually slowed. “Tell me something about yourself that I don’t already know,” she murmured at last.

  “What is it you want to know?”

  “Something that will make you seem a little less perfect, so I’ll know you’re real.”

  She felt him tense, and she drew back to look at him. He appeared troubled, for some reason, but he was quick to shrug it off. “Oh, I’m real, all right. In fact, I’m about as real as it gets. So don’t go putting me on any kind of pedestal.” He spoke in a lightly ironic tone.

  “Why, do you have something to hide?”

  Lindsay smiled to let him know she was kidding. This time he didn’t smile back. His eyes searched her face, still wearing that troubled look. Then he pulled her close and wrapped his arms around her. Even so, she shivered a little, as if a cool breeze had wafted into the room.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Do I look okay to you?” Kerrie Ann turned away from the full-length mirror. When Lindsay didn’t answer right away, she bit her lip, frowning. “That bad, huh? Do you think I should change?”

  “No, you’re fine.” Lindsay smiled. “It’s just that this is the first time you’ve asked for my opinion.”

  “So lay it on me, okay? ’Cause I don’t want to go in there looking like someone who can’t take care of her own kid.”