Lady Be Good

by Nancy Martin

  “I don’t need a bed. Not yours, anyway.”

  Luke leaned closer. “Loosen your corset, Princess. I’m not propositioning you, honest. Just offering a port in the storm.”

  Grace reached for her gloves and efficiently tucked them into her handbag. “I’m not wearing a corset—figurative or otherwise. Thanks, but no thanks. I think it’s time to go find my gate.”

  Luke didn’t protest as she pulled out her wallet to pay for the drinks. Quicker, he dug some cash out of his pocket and left a few bills on the bar even though the bartender had said the drinks were on the house. Then he picked up her luggage, and they went out into the airport together, brushing close as he held the door open for her.

  “Thank you for the ride and the drink,” Grace told him as she settled her coat over her arm and pushed her hat up off her forehead. “It was a pleasure meeting you.” She meant what she said, too. She liked this big football player. He may not have much sophistication, but he seemed like a truly nice guy. And his clumsy invitation to go home with him was … flattering.

  He said, “Look, I didn’t mean to get you riled up. Not about going to my place. Or about Jake Kendall.”

  “You didn’t. I’m just anxious to get my travel over with. Oops.” She must have been more flustered that she realized, because she managed to let her coat slip off her arm. It landed on the floor at his feet.

  He bent and picked it up, gave it a shake, and handed it over. “I thought that drink was supposed to calm you down.”

  On the contrary, the gimlet seemed to have had the opposite effect. Accepting her coat, standing with him, Grace felt more churned up than before. Postponed flight, tomorrow’s schedule—it all spun in her head. So why was she hearing his voice? What’s the proper etiquette for asking a lady if she needs a bed for the night? That certainly wasn’t the kind of thing Dear Miss Vanderbine should be thinking.

  She turned away before Luke could guess her state of mind and led the way to the bank of televisions that scrolled flight information. The concourse was still crowded, but people seemed to be hurrying out of the terminal, not heading toward the security line.

  When Luke caught up to her, she decided to put an end to their brief association. “Thank you for looking after me. I have appreciated your help. I’m not nearly as nervous as I was when we got here. And you---Thank you for being so nice. You seem very sweet.”

  “We’ll see what you have to say about that,” he predicted, “after you’ve had breakfast in my kitchen.”

  “I’ll forgo that pleasure.” Grace extended her hand for him to shake.

  “I don’t think so.” Luke was looking over her head at the blinking television screens.

  Grace spun around. “Oh, no.”

  “Canceled,” Luke read aloud, sounding far from sorry. “See? Philadelphia’s closed. So are Newark and Baltimore. You’re grounded, Princess.”

  “Oh, damn!”

  He laughed. “Hey, is that what Dear Miss Vanderbine says in polite company?”

  She was tempted to say worse.

  Luke took her hand in his. He turned her away from the televisions and drew her out of the stream of pedestrian traffic. “Don’t lose your social graces now, Princess,” he coached.

  “I have appointments tomorrow. This is so maddening!”

  “I’m sure it is,” Luke said. “Well? How about it? My place after all? I do have people stay over now and then, so it’s not a pig sty. At least, nobody has complained so far.”

  Grace pulled from his grasp and faced him. He was smiling again. Which seemed to make her more flummoxed than ever. “Thank you, but no. I’m sure I’ll manage to find something suitable--”

  “Honestly,” he said with patience, “you’re not going to find a hotel room, and it would be hell to hang out here all night, waiting for Philadelphia to open again. Think. You might as well come with me.”

  “I couldn’t. Can’t. Thank you, but—”

  Luke dropped both her suitcases on the floor with a double thud and interrupted. “I know, I know, we haven’t been properly introduced.”

  He took a step and sketched a bow to Grace. In an imitation of a highbrow New England accent, he said, “Miss Grace Vanderbine, may I have the pleasure of introducing Lucius “the Laser” Lazurnovich, Emperor of the Kingdom of the Lateral Sweep and heir to the throne of the Football Hall of Fame? And you are Miss Vanderbine, of the publishing Vanderbines—not the Vanderbines in trade, of course. How do you do, Miss Vanderbine? Have we met before perhaps? The south of France? Aren’t the beaches quite dazzling this time of year?”

  A sputter of laughter escaped Grace’s mouth just before she clapped her hand to smother her reaction.

  “There. See?” he said. “Painless. Now, let’s go before we both get stranded here for the night. I’m starving.” He grabbed up her bags to emphasize his determination.

  “Mr. Lazurn--Lazurnovich, please, it’s really very kind of you—”

  “Luke. Just Luke. It’s easy to say and only one syllable. I’m hungry, dammit! Can’t we go? I’m not asking you to take off your clothes. Just offering you a place to stay for the night.”

  “What about your family? Surely you have a wife and--”

  Either he didn’t hear her, or he was ignoring her feeble protests. “C’mon. Your virtue is safe, I promise. Come on.”

  He didn’t wait for her. He set off walking back the way they had come, leaving Grace standing by an escalator.

  She could have shouted him down. Called security. Demanded her luggage. It would have been easy to stop him and go on her way, alone. Grace wasn’t the type of woman to let herself be bulldozed into anything she didn’t want to do.

  But a tiny voice in the back of her head suggested something other than objecting. At last, was there a way to do something good for Nora? Did Luke Lazurnovich know something about Jake Kendall’s death? Something that might help Nora and her sisters?

  And another voice whispered even more quietly that Luke had a sexy walk and the kind of shoulders any woman in her right mind might really enjoy getting hold of.

  Grace took an uncertain step after him. Then another.

  At the door, he spun around. “Come on,” he insisted. “Haven’t you ever heard what starving football players are like? Move it, Princess.”

  He headed out the door, and Grace reached her decision. She made a skittering dash for the door and caught up just as he was stowing her bags in the back seat of the limo. He popped open the front passenger door and indicated she should jump in. She obeyed.

  When he closed the door, Grace closed her eyes said aloud, “I’m doing this for you, Nora.”

  Luke got almost the whole way around the hood of the car before the cop returned and asked for an autograph. Luke’s laugh rang above the sound of the icy wind. It was a warm, sexy kind of laugh.

  Grace snapped her seatbelt and said to herself. “Well, maybe not completely for Nora.”

  Grace Vanderbine was going to spend the night in the home of a strange man--a football player, no less.

  Mama would have a fit.

  4.

  Luke finished exchanging jokes with the police officer and handed over his autograph scrawled on the back of a ticket torn from the officer’s pad. He climbed behind the wheel. “Cop says the Parkway’s closing. We’re just barely going to make it to my place.”

  Flipping up her coat collar and snuggling into it for warmth, Grace said, “Do you give autographs wherever you go?”

  “If somebody asks, I sign my name. What’s the big deal?”

  “Doesn’t it get tiresome?”

  Luke started the car. “If a piece of paper makes somebody happy, I can take ten seconds out of my day to sign it.”

  “That’s a generous attitude.”

  “You don’t sign autographs?”

  “Well, I signed a few book yesterday and today. But it’s not the same. You have been accosted four times since I’ve met you.”

  “Accosted? Maybe you keep
score about who’s rude and who isn’t, but I can’t be bothered.”

  Did she keep score? His statement brought her up short. Was she getting so focused on the rules that she was missing the big picture?

  Luke drove the car out onto the highway again, with snow blasting the windshield and the tires grinding through snowdrifts. Grace was grateful that he drove sensibly. She could see how treacherous the road was, so she kept quiet to let him concentrate.

  To avoid paying attention to the white knuckle ride, she used her cell phone and her airline app to try getting a seat on a flight in the morning. The best she could find was stand-by on an early flight.

  Luke’s home was in a nearby suburb—a neighborhood of vast houses that ranged along curving hillsides, all with long driveways and complicated rooflines. Elaborate landscaping was covered in picturesque snow. One neighbor was out with a snow blower, but the rest of the street was blanketed with drifts. Luke turned into the last driveway, and the car spun sideways before getting some traction. The drive curved upwards and finally ended at a triple garage door, one of which opened when he hit a button under the sun visor.

  The garage was attached to a house big enough for four families.

  Luke pulled the limo as close to a side entrance as he could get and shut off the engine. He got out into the storm.

  “Wait there a minute,” he said before slamming his door.

  Grace knew he planned on carrying her to the door of the house, and she wasn’t prepared to find herself in his arms again.

  So she bailed out of the limousine and squeaked as her feet immediately sank into nearly knee-deep snow. She hopscotched over the snowy heaps, and in seconds she was safely out of the wind and inside a cold but quiet garage, her shoes soaked.

  “I told you to wait,” he protested when he had grabbed her luggage out of the back seat and met her in the garage, stamping snow from his boots. “I didn’t say please, did I? Okay, this way.”

  Two vehicles were parked in the garage—a big SUV and a low sports car, bright red. In the corner was a jet ski on a trailer, and the rafters were hung a sleek Trek bicycle, several sets of skis, and a collection of various balls—footballs, basketballs, soccer balls—in a big net. There might have been a kayak hanging in a distant corner, but Grace couldn’t be sure.

  Boys and their toys.

  “Do you ride that bike?” Grace pointed upwards.

  “Now and then.”

  “I love biking. I was hoping to ride across Ireland with some friends next summer.”

  “Was? You’re not going?”

  “I don’t know. It depends on book sales.” Grace didn’t feel like explaining more. She had tentatively planned the bike tour with her pal Jasmine and her husband Joe, but the Miss Vanderbine book tour might intrude on the plans.

  “This way.” Luke threaded his way between the cars. He pressed a button to lower the garage door and said over his shoulder, “I had to fire the butler for hassling the upstairs maid, so the place might be a little messy.”

  “You’re kidding about the butler, right?”

  He grinned. “Right.”

  They trooped through a darkened laundry room, the floor of which was littered with boots and shoes and what looked like a discarded pair of coveralls, a basketball, and a broken hockey stick. What might have been a shotgun hung by its trigger guard on a hook over the dryer, except that it was fluorescent yellow and Grace saw the name BUBBLE BLASTER written along the barrel. This room was, apparently, an extension of Luke Lazurnovich’s toy chest.

  Grace picked her way through the cheerful mess and asked, “I realize this might be an impertinent question, but does the Laser have any children?”

  “Impertinent, huh? Nope, no kids.”

  “It’s also a little late to ask if you’re married.”

  “Not anymore. You?”

  “No, I’m not married.”

  “Okay, then,” he said. “This way.”

  Grace crossed the threshold into the kitchen. Luke flipped on a light switch.

  His kitchen was big enough for cooking a state dinner. A huge stove, double refrigerator, two sinks that glittered with hardware that was pretty enough to be jewelry. Dramatic lights made the granite counters sparkle. An island was surrounded by sturdy steel stools, perfect for a party. The room was L shaped, with a two-story arched window over a breakfast table that might have served King Arthur and his knights. Or maybe a whole football team.

  “Wow,” Grace said, her breath almost taken away by the extravagance of a professional athlete’s home. “Are you a gourmet cook?”

  “Hell, no. I’m the king of sandwiches, though. My ex-wife did all the fancy stuff. This was her dream kitchen. Trouble is, she didn’t cook either. The only time we ever used the oven was when my mom came and roasted a ham one Easter.”

  Grace glanced down one hall, then another. “This whole house is amazing.”

  “Yeah, one Super Bowl can buy some nice real estate.”

  He’d left a coffee mug on the table beside a folded newspaper. An empty milk carton stood in the sink, but there were no dirty dishes anywhere. The tiled floor was spotless, and so were the windows. Grace guessed he hired a cleaning service to keep his home spotless.

  “The living room’s that way, and here’s a powder room.” He pushed a door open with his boot and headed around the corner with her luggage. “Look around, if you like. You can put your hat and coat in the closet to your left.”

  The closet was large enough to serve the needs of a hundred guests, but he’d only hung a few jackets there alongside a set of golf clubs. A shelf held some knitted hats, baseball caps, several pairs of gloves, and a Garneau bike helmet with a big scrape on one side.

  Grace took a peek into the darkened living room. She saw the shapes of several long sofas, some low tables made of glass, and a carved white marble fireplace big enough to accommodate Santa Claus and at least one reindeer.

  Most people figured Dear Miss Vanderbine lived in luxury, with bowing servants and plenty of caviar in the pantry. But after her divorce, Mama had raised Grace and Todd in a modest house on a quiet suburban street, so Grace was impressed by the opulence of the Laser’s house. No expense had been spared in the building materials. His ex-wife had expensive tastes in decorating, too.

  Grace said, “There must be more square footage here than the Astrodome.”

  “Yeah, almost. But no cheap seats.” Luke walked across the marble floor of a large entry hall, his footsteps echoing, and then he started up a curving staircase in the dark. “I’m gonna wash the grease off my hands. I’ll be back in a few.”

  He was taking her suitcases upstairs and politely giving her an opportunity to use the bathroom, Grace decided. After hanging up her coat, she took him up on the offer and sequestered herself in a spacious lavatory for a few minutes. It gave her time to think while she stared at her reflection in a mirror better suited to a French chateau.

  At all costs, she lectured herself, she shouldn’t let herself get carried away. A sordid hookup could not be part of her book tour. She was here to learn something for Nora, that was all. Well, mostly all.

  Still trying to get her hair to behave, she let herself out of the powder room and poked her nose around the corner into what she assumed was the dining room. A large chandelier hung from the coffered ceiling, but there was no furniture. Down the hall was another room—a kind of den, she guessed, because some recliners suited for big men were pointed toward a television screen gargantuan enough to suit a drive-in theater. She could imagine Super Bowl parties there. A desk in one corner looked like it was the place Luke did some business, so maybe the room was his base of operations. The rest of the house seemed pretty empty.

  Luke thudded down the stairs. “Your toes must be frozen.”

  Grace sadly looked down at her shoes and hoped she hadn’t ruined them. “I’ve been warmer,” she admitted. “Maybe I should have chosen southern cities for this tour.”

  “You could be in
South Beach right now.” He handed over a clean pair of white socks. “Here. Fresh back from the laundry service. Put ‘em on.”

  Grace gave up her pride and promptly sat down on the bottom step of the grand staircase. She kicked off her damp shoes and pulled on the big woolly socks.

  “Wonderful,” she sighed, wiggling her toes in comfort. She smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

  Luke smiled back, then scooped up her shoes and carried them to the breakfast room. He squashed up some sheets of his morning newspaper and packed a page into each shoe. That done, he put them down on the floor by the back door and made a beeline for the refrigerator. “Let’s eat.”

  He unfastened the buttons on his flannel shirt as he surveyed the contents of the fridge. “I can’t go to restaurants much, because I spend half my time signing autographs and getting my picture taken with fans. So it’s sandwiches at home most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, I watch what I eat, but at dinnertime—a sandwich hits the spot. You’re not a vegetarian, are you? I’ve got a really good capicola, some salami, maybe some low-fat turkey, every kind of cheese you can think of. Mustard, mayo—here, grab the pickles, will you? Lettuce, peppers. I love hot peppers.”

  Grace took a peek around him into the large refrigerator. She expected junk food and beer, but it looked as if her host was careful about his diet. The vegetable bin was jammed full, and bottles of juice lined the top shelf. She hefted a large jar of pickles from the shelf on the door.

  He said, “You want rye bread? Whole wheat? It’s there in the drawer.”

  A sandwich sounded marvelous, and soon a mountain of ingredients began to pile up on the kitchen counter. A bag of baby carrots, condiments.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Plates are in the cupboard. No, not that one. There.” He pointed down the long row of cabinetry, then peeled off his flannel shirt and dropped it on the island. Underneath, he wore a warm cotton pullover. He pushed up the sleeves to get to work. “Yeah, there. And I’m crazy for Lorna Doones. See the package? There’s milk or beer or ginger ale. Or I could make some coffee.” He indicated a gleaming stainless steel coffeemaker with an Italian name printed across it. “What would you like to drink?”