by Sandra Brown
Lucky frowned as he took in her skimpy attire. "Listen here, young lady, I expect you to behave yourself in a manner becoming a lady when it comes to the opposite sex," he said sternly.
"Ha! You're a fine one to talk. Do you behave yourself like a gentleman?"
"Do you run around the wild young studs dressed like that?" he demanded, nodding down at her bikini.
"You gawk at women in bikinis."
"So? Male prerogative."
"Like hell!" Sage exclaimed. "That's a double standard."
A mental image of Devon emerging from the swimming pool, peeling back her wet hair with both hands; buttocks and mound covered by triangles of bronze, metallic fabric; breasts bare, heavy, gleaming, beaded with sparkling drops of water.
Sage was right. He had gawked, and it was a double standard. But that didn't keep his body from reacting to the alluring mental picture.
"You gotta leave now," he said in a voice so low it sounded like a growl.
"Here lately, you're such a grouch." She left the bed and flounced toward the door. However, she pulled up short and turned back, her expression no longer irritable, but sympathetic.
"Chase came by at lunch to check on you. Mother and I told him you were sleeping. He said not to wake you up, that you needed the rest. He, uh, he told us about the Haines woman, Lucky. I'm sorry."
Despite his foul mood, he winked at her. "Thanks, brat. I appreciate your concern."
Once Sage had closed the door, he flung back the sheet and went to his bureau. It took him a long time to dress because he often found himself standing motionless staring into space, or forgetting what he'd gone to the closet for, or wondering why he was searching through a particular drawer. His mind kept straying back to Devon. Damn, he still wanted to see her.
Instead, he had to go see Susan. After avoiding her and her preposterous marriage proposal for more than a week, he acknowledged that he couldn't delay dealing with it any longer.
"Jeez, I dread this," he muttered to himself as he finally left his bedroom and loped down the stairs.
He didn't realize until later just how much his dread had been warranted.
* * *
Chapter 11
It was almost as though she had expected him.
Devon didn't react with as much surprise as he had anticipated. Her car rolled to a halt beside his where he was parked at the curb in front of her condo. She gazed at him for a moment, her expression revealing little, before she pulled into the driveway.
Lucky stepped out of his Mustang and moved toward the garage door that had opened automatically for Devon's car. They met in the driveway. Obviously she had just come from work. She was dressed in a suit, although she was carrying, not wearing, the jacket. Sunglasses held her hair away from her face. Her other hand held a large, flat pizza box.
"Hi," he said, his expression solemn.
"Hello."
"I, uh…" He shuffled and glanced up at the storm clouds darkening the sky. "Is your husband at home?"
"No."
"I don't want to make this any more difficult for you than it has to be."
"Then what are you doing here?"
"I've got to talk to you." He drew his lips tight and said through his teeth, "Dammit, you've got to help me, Devon."
She glanced around worriedly, as though prying eyes might be peeking at them from the other houses on the block. Finally she nodded curtly.
"Come on in." She led him through the garage, lowered the door by depressing the switch on the wall, and asked him to hold the pizza while she unlocked the kitchen door. He followed her inside and deposited the pizza on the white tile countertop.
She nicked another switch. Cold blue fluorescent lighting nickered on. "I'll be back in a minute."
She disappeared through a doorway. Lucky moved to the window overlooking her backyard. It had started to rain. Fat drops bounced on the water in the pool and splattered on the deck. They were such opulent drops, they bent down the leaves of her plants. A jagged streak of lightning divided the sky just above the horizon. Moments later it was followed by a drumroll of thunder.
"Are you hungry?"
He turned. She had come into the kitchen behind him, having changed into a pair of old jeans, a loose pullover, and a pair of soft leather moccasins. Her hair looked freshly brushed. Without the armor of her business suit she looked younger, more vulnerable.
"I guess. Hadn't thought about it."
"Do you like pepperoni pizza?"
"Sure."
"Give me a minute to make a salad."
Lucky was dumbfounded. Was she actually inviting him to stay for supper? He'd expected her to slam the door in his face—if she'd been the one to answer it. If he had encountered her husband on the other side of the threshold, he planned to ask directions or something equally as ludicrous.
When he hadn't got an answer after ringing her doorbell, he had decided to wait and see who turned up first and play it by ear from there. Being invited to dinner hadn't even crossed his mind as a possibility.
She had removed salad greens and tomatoes from the refrigerator and was calmly tearing lettuce into a bowl. He said, "You don't seem surprised to see me."
"I'm not."
He propped his hip against the counter. "How come?"
"You said you never take no for an answer from a woman." She lifted her eyes to his. "I believe you. Excuse me." She nudged him aside, reached into the refrigerator again and took out a bottle of salad dressing, and, to his further astonishment, a bottle of red wine.
She passed it to him, along with a corkscrew, which she took from a drawer. "Would you please?"
Mystified by her composure, Lucky peeled the sealing material off the wine bottle and twisted the corkscrew into the cork. He watched her set the table with two place settings. She placed several slices of pizza in the microwave oven to warm.
"Glasses?"
"Beneath the cabinet."
He noticed then that two rows of wineglass stems were hanging upside down from a rack mounted on the underside of the cabinet. He slid out two and poured each of them a glass of wine. Devon lighted a candle, placed it in the center of the table, and motioned him into a chair.
Lucky approached the table, bringing with him the two glasses of wine, along with the bottle, and sat down in the chair she'd indicated. She sat down across from him and began serving his plate from the large salad bowl. Once both their plates were filled with salad and pizza, he reached across the table and caught her hand in the act of reaching for her wineglass.
"What gives with you?" he asked tautly.
"What do you mean?"
"What happens if your husband comes home and finds us sharing a cozy candlelight dinner?"
"Would that bother you?"
"A whole hell of a lot."
"He won't."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. He won't be home tonight." She pulled her hand back, reached for her glass, and sipped the wine.
The mingling, mouth-watering aromas of oregano and mozzarella had reminded Lucky that he hadn't eaten all day. He took a huge bite of pizza and washed it down with a swallow of wine. Wine wasn't his beverage of choice, but it seemed appropriate to drink when the woman he was sharing his meal with had hair the same deep red color.
"It's good," he said politely.
"Thank you."
"Do you do this often?"
She bit into a slice of pizza, pulling on the stringy cheese until it eventually broke off.
"What? Bring pizza home for dinner?"
Lucky munched on his own chewy bite, swallowed, and said with a patience he didn't feel, "No, have men over for dinner when your husband is out of town."
"I didn't say he was out of town. I just said he wouldn't be home tonight."
Tired of her word games, he set his fists on either side of his plate and glared at her until she looked up at him. "Do you do this often?"
She held out for a few moments more before answering. Even
tually her stubbornness surrendered to his. "You're the first man I've had to dinner in this house. Now, does that salve your ego, or whatever the hell it is that causes you to badger me about things that are none of your business?"
"Yeah, thanks."
"You're welcome."
"I'm flattered."
"Don't be. I just knew you wouldn't go away without first having your 'talk.' I was hungry." She shrugged, letting him draw his own conclusion. "It's certainly not a violation of the marriage vows for two adults to share a pizza."
"Unless those same two adults have shared a pillow."
Her eyes connected with his and reflected the glazed shock of a nocturnal animal caught in headlights bearing down on it.
To increase her astonishment even more, lightning struck nearby. Following a rending sound like the cracking of a bullwhip, all the lights went out except for the steadily burning flame of the candle.
"Are you all right?" Lucky asked, stunned by the sudden absence of the sterile fluorescent lighting.
"Of course. I'm fine." She didn't look fine. The hand that reached for her wineglass was trembling.
"Devon." Acting on instinct, he reached across the table to capture her hand. It was cold. He enfolded it in the warmth of his. After glancing over each of her chilled fingertips with his thumb, he settled it in the cup of her palm, stroking evocatively. "About that, Devon…"
"About what?"
"About us sharing a pillow, a bed. You don't have anything to worry about." Her head tilted quizzically. "I mean about birth control or anything. I took care of that. I didn't know if you were aware of—"
"Yes, yes, I was," she stammered. "Thank you. You behaved…" She faltered and swallowed with difficulty. "You were a perfect gentleman about that."
His crooked grin was self-deprecating. "If I'd been a perfect gentleman, I wouldn't have tracked you down, tricked my way into your room, and coerced you into letting me stay the night."
"You were injured. By the way, how's the knife wound?" She lowered her gaze to his midsection.
"It's okay. You can barely see it anymore."
"Oh."
He didn't know at exactly what point in the conversation they had started whispering. It was silly, really, but somehow the topic, the setting, and the mood called for soft, confidential voices.
They simultaneously realized that their eyes seemed locked to each other and that he was still stroking her palm. Guiltily she pulled her hand from his grasp, though he was reluctant to let it go. Taking his cue from her, he resumed eating, but his appetite for food had deserted him, to be replaced by hunger for her.
The only sounds in the silent house were those of the rain pelting the windows and of cutlery against their plates. However, if sexual awareness and suppressed longings were capable of generating sound, the noise would have been as blaring as a brass band.
"More pizza?" she asked.
"No thanks."
"Salad?"
He shook his head. As she cleared the dishes from the table, he refilled both their wineglasses. When she returned to the table, he noticed their reflections in the window glass. It was a portrait of intimacy, a man and a woman sharing a candlelight dinner. Devon noticed it too.
"Appearances can be deceiving."
"Yes," she answered softly.
After a moment he said, "Devon, I'm going to shoot straight with you. You don't know me very well, but I assure you that shooting straight is not something I usually do with a woman."
"I don't find that at all hard to believe." She was smiling as she raised her wineglass to her lips.
"No, I guess not," he said ruefully. Leaning back in his chair, he contemplated the candle's flame through the ruby contents of his wineglass. "There's this girl in Milton Point that I've been seeing for a couple of months."
"Rest assured that I don't intend to make trouble between you and your girlfriend."
"That's not what this is about," he said crossly.
"Then why bring it up?"
"Because you need to know about her."
"What makes you think I'm interested in your romances?"
"This isn't about romance. Just hear me out, okay? Then you'll get your turn." She gave him a small nod of concession. "This girl's daddy is a big shot at the bank that's holding a loan on my business."
"Is that why you were dating her?"
He got the impression that she would be disappointed if he said yes. "No. I started seeing Susan because she was one of the few available women in town that I hadn't been to bed with yet."
She cast her eyes downward. "I see."
"I told you I was going to shoot straight, Devon."
"And I appreciate your honesty," she replied huskily. "Go on."
"Susan is spoiled rotten. Accustomed to winding her daddy and everybody else around her little finger. Selfish. Self-centered." He could go on and on, but felt that he had captured the essence of Susan's personality and didn't want to be accused of overkill.
"Anyway, she's made up her mind that she wants to be Mrs. Lucky Tyler."
"Why?"
He shrugged. "My sister says because it would distinguish her."
"That's considered a distinction in Milton Point?"
"By some," he said testily.
"I take it you're not too keen on the idea of marrying her."
"There's no chance in hell that I'm going to marry her."
"Have you told her that?"
"Twice."
"Apparently she doesn't take no for an answer either."
His temper snapped. Scowling, he said, "I'm pouring out my guts here, trying to explain things to you, and all you can do is make these snide little remarks."
"Your romantic intrigues might be fascinating to some women, but I don't see what your problems with this Susan have to do with me."
"I'm getting to that."
"Please do."
"Last week Susan volunteered to lie to the authorities, saying that she had slept with me the night of the fire."
"In exchange for a wedding ring, I suppose."
"Bingo."
"To which you said…?"
"Nothing. I didn't take it seriously. I thought maybe if I ignored her, she'd give up and go away."
"No such luck?"
"No such luck. Today she called and insisted on seeing me."
"What happened?"
"She's threatened to tell another lie. Only this time she says she'll tell them that I outlined to her my plan to torch our garage and use the insurance money to pay off the bank note."
"They would never believe her."
"The hell they wouldn't. To their way of thinking, she would be making an ultimate sacrifice. She's willing to squander her reputation as a Goody Two Shoes by making it public that she's been sleeping with me."
"Has she?"
He could tell that she regretted asking the question almost before she'd completed it. That gave him a glimmer of hope. She cared enough to wonder about his other lovers. Could she also be a tad jealous?
"No, Devon. I've never slept with her. I swear." His eyes bore deeply into hers, trying to impress the truth into her mind. Her next question indicated that she had been persuaded.
"Then what have you got to worry about?"
"Plenty. Susan can be very convincing. Hell, this afternoon, I almost believed her myself when she began to cry and say that she couldn't hold in her ugly secret any longer. 'I can't go through the rest of my life with this on my conscience,' she said, or words to that effect. She was talking like it was fact, going on and on about how unhappy I'd made her by confiding my nefarious plan to her."
Devon's fingers absently trailed up and down the stem of her wineglass while she pondered what he'd told her. "I presume that the only way Susan would be happy again is if you proposed marriage, in which case she would conveniently forget that you're an arsonist."
"That was the implication, yeah. If we were formally engaged, she would switch her stories to 'protect' me."
/>
"At the same time protecting your business from bankruptcy."
He nodded grimly. "I dismissed her threats until today. This afternoon I saw just how destructive she could be."
"Hell hath no fury, et cetera."
"Especially since I was supposed to be having dinner with her when I was in bed with you."
Devon's lips parted, but remained speechless.
"When she found out about that, well, that really capped it. My sister, Sage, tried to warn me about Susan. I laughed off her warnings. I shouldn't have. Susan is devious and audacious, willing to go to any lengths to get what she's after.
"Damn my own hide, I made it easy for her to trap me, and at the same time bring down my whole family. Out of pure spite, she's not above making our lives hell. She can and will do it."
"Unless I tell the authorities where you really were the night of the fire," Devon said slowly.
"That's right." With emotional gruffness he added, "Unless you tell them that I was making love to you."
"Don't call it that!" Devon's words were a whisper, but an exclamation just the same. She left her chair so hurriedly that her thigh bumped the rim of the table and rocked the candle.
Lucky left his chair just as quickly. Devon was leaning into the countertop, her hands curled into fists on the tiles along the edge. He stepped behind her and, for a split second, wrestled with his conscience. He shouldn't touch her. He shouldn't. Even knowing that, he placed one of his hands on the countertop beside hers and curved his other arm around her waist, flattening his hand on her stomach and burying his face in the nape of her neck. He luxuriated in the silky feel of her hair against his lips.
"That's what it was, Devon. Deny it with your dying breath if it soothes your conscience, but that won't ever change what it was."
"Leave me alone," she moaned. "Please."
"Listen to me," he said urgently. "That arson rap isn't the only reason I'm here. You know that. You knew it yesterday. I would have come looking for you whether or not I was in trouble. I had to see you again.
"You wanted to see me again just as badly. I don't care how many times you deny it, I know it's true. You're not only running from involvement in a criminal case and what effects it might have on your life. You're running from this." He lightly ground his hand over her belly, skimmed her mound, the top of her thigh.
