My Fair Gentleman

by Jan Freed

  “Catherine, are you okay?”

  By this time, the tallest boy was peering anxiously around the platform.

  Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no.

  “What’s wrong? Answer me.”

  But Catherine was too focused on a spot just beyond the platform, the place where a vibrant boy had disappeared. She prayed the water was clear. And please God, not too deep.

  JOE HELD his racket at the ready and swayed on the balls of his feet. The motions were futile but, hey, a man had his pride. He’d go down fighting.

  Across the net, Pretty Boy tossed the ball high, arced back his racket and followed through in a poetry of motion that had dazzled Joe for the first six or so serves. Now he focused grimly on a small section of clay court, knowing the missile was coming. Knowing it would be ugly.

  The green blur hit just inside the fault line and spun straight into Joe’s swinging racket. The impact thudded, instead of thwacked, but at this point, screw technique. The ball sailed back over the net, and that was all that counted. It wasn’t another ace.

  Pretty Boy’s serve was not just good. It was damn near unconscious.

  Now Joe had a shot at winning the point, and he wanted it. More than a beautiful woman, more than a pile of money—more than a World Series championship ring, goddammit. And he went for it. With aggressive volleys, solid backhands—gut-wrenching forehand drives, goddammit.

  And the little twerp drove everything right back down Joe’s throat.

  Heat shimmered up from the clay. Sweat dripped like rain from his nose and chin. His knees hurt like hell and he knew he’d pay later. Backpedaling to the baseline to return a lob, he concentrated on the ball and pretended it was Pretty Boy’s head.

  Six feet four inches of royally pissed-off athlete went into his overhead smash. He’d never hit a ball—any kind of ball—so hard in his life, not even for a home run. Take that! he thought seconds before something smacked him in the forehead.

  Staggering, he watched Carl vault the net and jog forward.

  “Are you all right?”

  Joe’s focus cleared. He looked up at the cloudless sky. “Did a meteor fall or something?”

  “I’m afraid my return caught you off guard. Sorry about that. You want to rest a minute before the next set?”

  To give the guy credit, he was trying to look concerned. But he’d just whipped a pro athlete’s butt. Well, ex-pro. Of another sport. Using a borrowed racket. After major surgery. Still, if it’d been Joe, he’d be rubbing his opponent’s face in it.

  He probed the knot swelling at his temple and snorted. “What I want is to end this torture before you maim something vital. How about letting me buy you a beer in the locker room?”

  Carl look startled, then disproportionately pleased. “Only if you let me get the second one. By the way, that last return of yours was a helluva good smash.”

  “Obviously not good enough. Where’d you learn to play like that, anyway?”

  “Princeton had an excellent program. I’ve kept at it ever since. The pro here has helped a lot. I could probably set up a private lesson for you if you’re interested.”

  “Nah. It’s bad for my knees—and worse for my ego.” He grinned ruefully, giving the victor his due.

  “You actually played very well. With a little work on returning serves, I wouldn’t want a repeat match.” Sweaty, rumpled and clearly a decent sport on the tennis court, this Carl was a whole lot easier to stomach than Pretty Boy.

  They collected balls, zipped up rackets and packed up nylon bags as they talked, then headed for the clubhouse at an easy stroll. Joe felt a lance of pain in his left knee with every step. He really was an idiot sometimes.

  At the crowded outdoor pool, they searched the area for Allie and Catherine, wanting to discuss lunch plans. Bathing beauties galore, but no Snow White and a little pal dwarf. What had they done while he’d been making a fool of himself on the court? Neither one of them had shown much enthusiasm for coming here. He’d clinched their cooperation by offering to give up his match if they really didn’t want to lounge in idle luxury for an hour or two.

  For the first time, he felt a twinge of guilt at his selfishness.

  “Maybe they’re in the rec room,” Carl said after it was obvious the two weren’t at the pool.

  “Why don’t you look there while I check out the lake?” Joe couldn’t picture Catherine exerting herself in a canoe, but Allie was another story. “I’ll meet you in the locker room in ten minutes.”

  Nodding, Carl headed off on his mission. Joe got his bearings and followed a mulched path leading to, according to the trail sign, “Lake Paradise. Swim and Canoe at Your Own Risk.” Carl had said the clubhouse sat near the only natural lake in the community. The remaining six were glorified stock tanks placed throughout the golf course as hazards.

  Joe glimpsed a bit of lake, broke through a grove of trees and spotted two figures on shore. Catherine was dressed like a good Muslim wife, Allie like a— Good Lord! Was that Allie?

  He stalked forward, the lecture he’d given Norman replaying in his mind. How could Catherine have allowed his daughter to expose herself like that? He frowned at the tall, shrouded woman and stopped in his tracks, his senses on red alert.

  Catherine stood unnaturally still, her focus riveted on the lake.

  She turned and spoke sharply, the next instant shucking sandals, robe, hat and glasses, then running toward the pier. Slim and sleek in a one-piece black swimsuit, she hit the boards at full stride and never slowed down. Stunned, he watched her launch herself from the pier in a flat racing dive and cut through the water with powerful strokes.

  And at last he noticed the dock about fifty yards from the pier. The one where two teenage boys were diving and disappearing for long stretches at a time, then surfacing and diving again.

  Oh-no-oh-no-oh-no-oh-no.

  THE LAKE WAS COLD and foreign—completely unlike her heated lap pool. Time was her enemy. She felt it ticking with each stroke of her arm. Building with the fatigue of her muscles. She kicked harder, faster, and reached the dock.

  One boy surfaced, his ragged breath mixed with sobs. Another head bobbed up beside him. “Mark’s gone, Danny. Oh, shit, he’s gone.”

  No time to comfort them. No time for fear. She swam around the floating platform, took a deep breath and dove.

  Murky, not clear. She shuddered and searched for the boy’s unconscious body. Would he sink straight down or drift? She didn’t know. Her lungs hurt. It was deep, dammit. She used precious energy driving for the bottom. Yuck! Silt and slime and prickly plants. She swept it with her arm and pushed up for the surface, her lungs burning. Panic. A frantic last surge.

  Air! So sweet. Yet something the boy didn’t have. She drew in a deep breath and dove.

  The current swayed the reeds. There! A shadow—no, a school of small fish. Another sweep of the bottom, and another. Ouch! She clutched her finger and kicked to the surface.

  Air! Sweeter than before. She glanced at the cut slicing her finger, drew a ragged breath and dove.

  Where are you, Mark? You are not gone. You are not going to die. She swept the bottom three times, converting her fear to anger. If she’d come face-to-face with the shark from Jaws just then, she would have drawn first blood. Oh, God, her lungs were on fire. She wasn’t going to make it.

  She broke the surface, dragging in great gasping gulps of air. Dizzy, trembling with exhaustion, she cursed the lake, the boy, the fate that Joe believed would prevail. The fate she would by God have a hand in forming. She took a deep shuddering breath. And dove.

  She was swimming blind now, past the point of focusing. Her ears roared. Her oxygen-deprived body screamed in agony. She hadn’t known you could cry while holding your breath underwater. Poor Mark. He didn’t deserve this. She swept her arm over the lake bottom and bumped something solid… slick…human.

  Groping over the boy’s skin, she clutched a handful of hair and pushed awkwardly off the bottom. So weak. So far away. Reachin
g inside herself, she tapped a hidden reservoir of strength and kicked desperately toward the surface.

  They spewed into fresh air and gasped. No, she gasped. The boy was completely still. A thin red cut on his forehead told its own story. Her strength gave out. She felt him slipping from her arms. She grabbed frantically for a handhold.

  “I’ve got him, Catherine. Let go.”

  Joe.

  She sagged in relief, swallowed water and coughed violently. Through blurry vision, she saw Joe swim to the floating platform and hoist the boy, then himself, up onto it. She heard him ask the two hovering friends if they knew CPR. His curse sent Catherine sidestroking to the platform.

  “Help me up,” she said hoarsely.

  Strong hands grabbed her wrists and plucked her from the water. The boy lay stretched on his back. He looked pale. Asleep. Dead. Kneeling down, she gently turned him over and sent up a prayer. When the trickle of water from his mouth stopped, she rolled him face up, tilted back his head and listened for breathing. Nothing, dammit.

  She lowered her mouth to his. Two quick breaths, then she walked her fingers down his chest, braced her overlapping hands against cold flesh and pushed for fifteen simulated heartbeats.

  “Help’s coming,” she thought she heard Joe say.

  She ignored him, her concentration on the boy.

  Stop to see his reaction. Breathe into his mouth. Push-push-push-push…The nightmare continued. Worse than before, because the sun was shining, the oxygen was there for his taking. She worked rhythmically, robotically, hearing the sound of quiet crying but unable to waste her precious energy on emotion.

  The crying grew louder. A siren wailed in the distance. She worked steadily. Push-push-push-push. Stop to see his reaction. Breathe into his mouth. Push-push-push-push…

  You are not going to die. Stop to see his reaction. You are going to live. Breathe into his mouth. You are going to sit up and wave to Allie. Push-push-push-push—Oh!

  The boy made a gurgling sound. Water erupted from his mouth in a beautiful purging vomit. She turned him gently on his side and let God and nature take over. He retched and gasped and coughed and breathed, and suddenly Catherine was sobbing while the others broke into cheers.

  Joe’s arms came around her then. Hard and strong and sheltering. She buried her face in his soggy shirt and sobbed harder.

  “Shh, Catherine. Honey. He’s going to be all right. You saved his life.” He held her and stroked her hair while the paramedics paddled out to the floating dock and treated the boy, then cleaned and bandaged her finger.

  “Does your cut hurt so much?” Joe asked her, looking worried and frustrated when that prompted fresh tears.

  He didn’t understand her need to cry, but he let her do it in the safety of his arms. Then he tucked her in a blanket, lifted her into a canoe and held her close while one of the boys paddled them to shore. When her legs wouldn’t support her, he scooped her up, carried her a quarter mile to the parked Bronco and settled her inside. And after he buckled her seat belt, after he told Allie to hop in and Carl to follow in his car, he gently kissed the top of Catherine’s head.

  No, he didn’t understand. And because he didn’t— yet comforted her, anyway—nothing would ever be the same.

  SOMETHING HAD CHANGED.

  Joe had ignored it while heating a can of soup in the kitchen of the garage apartment, then sending Allie to the main house with a tray. He’d suppressed it when Carl’s luxury car had remained parked in the driveway until seventeen minutes past nine o’clock and the lights in the distant upstairs windows had blinked off promptly at ten-thirty. He’d even managed to ignore it while hustling Allie into her bedtime routine and reading the newest Sports Illustrated before switching off the lamp.

  But now, staring at the ceiling from his sofa bed, he couldn’t hold back the images crowding his mind. They marched forward one by one and demanded to be seen.

  Catherine, the snobbish socialite, elbowing into The Pig’s Gut crowd and beating the reigning pool champ.

  Catherine, the pompous shrink, recognizing Norman’s pain and starting his healing process.

  Catherine, the uptight prude, melting at Joe’s touch with a responsiveness that heated his blood.

  Catherine, the hothouse flower, saving a boy’s life with gritty courage and amazing stamina, yet downplaying her role to a television news reporter who was early on the scene.

  With each vivid memory another preconception bit the dust. The woman that emerged firm in his mind was an intriguing blend of strength and vulnerability, passion and caution. When she’d cried in his arms earlier today…God. He’d only felt that fiercely protective of one other female. Yet his awareness of Catherine’s sleek body was a long way from fatherly affection.

  Of all the stinking luck, he was attracted to a woman who was engaged to marry someone richer, someone handsomer, someone more responsible. Someone else. As Allie would say, it sucked big-time. He knew damn well he would be a better lover for Catherine than Pretty Boy. But a husband? Not in this lifetime.

  And there was the answer he’d been searching for, the “something” that had “changed.”

  Three weeks ago he would’ve shown Catherine exactly how sexy he thought she was, to hell with what happened later. After all, “later” was just another word for “fate.” But now…

  Now he wondered about her future with Carl. The guy was from her world. He could give her everything—including the counseling practice she wanted. And anyone with half a brain could see her talents were wasted doing research.

  Suddenly Allie stirred in her sleep on the roll-away bed across the room. Romeo meowed once in protest from his usual sleeping spot at her feet. The tomcat adored Allie and barely tolerated Joe’s presence. The feeling was mutual. Give him a true-blue Fido any day.

  A jet shadow leapt from the darkness onto Joe’s bed. Juliet walked daintily up his sheet-covered body to settle Sphinx-like on his chest. She broke into a rumbling purr and began kneading.

  “Okay, okay. You’re the exception,” Joe murmured, absently rubbing her ears.

  Her purring was hypnotic. On a rising tide of drowsiness, his mind drifted, snagging a sensation here, an image there. Smooth wet skin. Fiery green eyes. Sleek curves in a T-back swim suit. I picked a helluva time to develop a conscience.

  It was his last clear thought before sleep took him under.

  CHAPTER NINE

  CATHERINE OPENED her eyes Sunday morning to bright sunlight and nagging pain. She started to stretch and gasped. When had a Mack truck driven over her bed? It hurt even to squint.

  Reaching for her second pillow, she plopped it over her face. Better. No, just darker. She couldn’t breathe. Flinging the pillow to the floor, she waited for her heartbeat to slow. Obviously sore muscles weren’t the only side effects from yesterday’s rescue. She wouldn’t be taking up scuba diving anytime soon.

  Despite her physical and mental trauma, she felt oddly content. A little less…hollow than usual.

  It was all that attention, of course. A Channel 13 live-action reporter had taped interviews with her and Mark’s teenage friends, who’d called her “awesome.” The story had made the six and ten-o’clock news. The boy’s parents had also phoned last night to thank her profusely. Then Carl had stayed and talked until she’d pleaded exhaustion and gone upstairs.

  His parting kiss had been heated and tender. No doubt that was where this warm feeling came from. Probably. Maybe.

  Maybe not.

  She sat up and met her rueful gaze in the dresser mirror. “All right, Doctor, you’re attracted to Joe. He offered you comfort and you took it. Period. Keep things professional and you’ll have nothing to be ashamed of.”

  Her eyes darkened in memory. Of shaggy wet hair dripping into short thick lashes, muscular arms lifting her with ease, a hard masculine jaw inches away from her lips—No!

  Saying the word aloud, she threw back her covers and headed for a hot shower. She’d devoted her entire life to becoming wh
at her mother was not. Well educated. Refined. Restrained. A source of pride to Lawrence Hamilton and the family name. She had no intention of adding “a good time for Joe Tucker” to the list.

  These restless stirrings Joe produced were the result of freedom from her father’s critical eye, she assured herself. If she cut herself some slack—within reason—her disturbing dissatisfaction would pass. Of course it would.

  Ten minutes later, her sore muscles and conscience eased, she rummaged through her wardrobe. Too dark, too old, too boring—Ah! She smiled and pulled out a sleeveless mock turtleneck in vivid cherry red, pairing it with fitted white shorts and flat white sandals. Another fifteen minutes went toward painting her toenails to match the clinging knit. Her terminally straight black hair was always a problem, but she dragged on a tortoiseshell headband and hoped for the best.

  “Mirror, mirror, on the wall,” she murmured, turning for a last look at her reflection.

  Not Snow White by any means. But not bad, either. Maybe she’d been wrong to think loose clothing made her look less skinny. The form-fitting turtleneck and shorts revealed what curves she did have, and even she had to admit her legs weren’t terrible. Daily laps in the pool had really paid off.

  She hummed all the way to the kitchen and was pouring a bowl of stale cereal when a knock set her pulse leaping.

  Professionalism, she reminded herself, smoothing her shorts before opening the door wide. Her initial disappointment dissolved into genuine pleasure.

  “Hi,” Allie said, her gaze anxious and appealing. She held a foil-wrapped plate in her hands. “How are you feeling?”

  “A little sore. But other than that, just fine. Come on in.” Smiling, Catherine stepped aside and caught a whiff of bacon as the girl passed. Her mouth watered. “Is that what I think it is?”

  Allie set the plate on the kitchen table and peeled back the foil, exposing scrambled eggs, bacon and toast. “I hope you haven’t eaten yet. I made a huge breakfast—too much for us to finish—so I kept this warm until Joe finally saw you moving around down here. Are you hungry?”