It Had to be You

by Susan Andersen

  But who the hell cares? Her seated twist-around has widened the black wrap’s lapels between those unbound breasts, exposing spectacular, pale-skinned cleavage. It’s all I can do to not let it command every scrap of my attention.

  Because, damn, she looks good in that.

  Lena stares back at me, apparently equally shocked. Then, following my gaze, she jerks the two sides of her wrap together. The better coverage can’t disguise her generous cleavage, but it does restore a few of my brain cells. I take a deep breath, then slowly exhale it.

  And get myself back on track. “We need to have a little talk about professionalism,” I say coolly. “Slapping your boss is anything but. Do anything like that again, and you will not like the way I retaliate.”

  “I had a darn good reason to smack you, considering all your lies.”

  “No, Lena, you didn’t. You’re all indignant about supposedly not getting any of the dozens of letters I mailed you—”

  She makes a sound like a tea kettle about to set off its whistle. “There is no supposed about it, you bimbo!”

  Swell, now she’s calling me a tough guy? Everyone knows that’s pretty much a synonym for mobster. I breathe deeply again, then manage to say calmly, “Yeah? Well, where were all your letters to me, Lena? You’re pretty vocal about not receiving the ones I damn well sent. Funny thing, though. I never got so much as one from you, either.”

  She surges to her feet. “And where was I supposed to send them, pray tell? In Care of the postal gods? You said you’d send me an address, remember?”

  “And…what?” I move in on her. “You broke your legs? Lost your voice? You couldn’t bestir yourself to go ask my mother when my letters failed to reach you?”

  “Ask your—?” Lena takes an incensed step in my direction. “You waltzed off first to college, then to war, and left me to face everyone with my brand-new reputation as the Quiff of Walla Walla!”

  That word from her lips, coupled with the sheer agonized outrage on her face, freezes me for a moment. The town branded her a slut?

  I’m still reeling when she recovers enough to step in and stand on her tip toes to thrust her face so close to mine my eyes cross. She drills a finger into my chest.

  “You think I was going to call on your mother with a newly minted, Booker-endowed reputation trailing after me like the stench of ground beef left in the sun?”

  “People called you a slut?”

  “Yes, Booker, they called me a precisely that—among other, equally lovely slurs. What the hell did you expect when Millie Longmire caught us with my blouse unbuttoned and your hand up my skirt?”

  “Not that.” The truth was, I’d been so miserable dealing with my own humiliating removal from town, I hadn’t stopped to consider the ramifications to her. I’d ached for her, yes. But— “It never occurred to me you had been left on your own to face down small town gossips.”

  “Millie was one of the biggest gossips in town,” Lena snaps, “but it never occurred to you she might spread what she’d seen all over tow—” Cutting herself off, she steps back. Seems to gather her dignity around her. “Nevertheless, that was what I dealt with. So, don’t tell me how unprofessional it is to have slapped you. If you ask me, I had enough provocation to beat you senseless.”

  My temper erupts again. “You know what the trouble is with getting on your high horse, Lena?”

  She arches a pale eyebrow. “No, but I’m sure you’re dying to tell me.”

  “It is a long way down when you tumble off. And I would hesitate to claim the moral high ground, if I were you. You left town with my best friend!”

  She doesn’t bluster, as I expected. Hell, she doesn’t look the least bit embarrassed, let alone get defensive. Instead, she looks me in the eye and drawls, “Yes, Booker, I did. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. Will supported me when you waltzed off and never looked back.”

  I am so furious over the way she stubbornly clings to that fucking fiction when it’s the farthest thing from the truth. I’m even more frustrated because she sounds as though she honest-to-Christ believes the shit she’s spewing. So I grab her, thrust my fingers through her hair and use my thumbs on her cheeks to tilt her head back. And shut her up in the only manner I know how.

  I kiss her.

  And her mouth. God, that mouth. It’s my dream all over again, only this time I’m wide awake and it’s real. Hell, I have kissed my share of women since leaving Walla Walla as a teen.

  I couldn’t recite the names of nine-tenths of them if you held my feet to the fire.

  Never have I forgotten Lena. God knows I tried, more than once. Yet I did not, could not, forget her. And with a single touch of my mouth to those pretty, pretty lips, our old chemistry explodes.

  It’s not just me, either. When I wrapped my hands around her head, Lena grabbed my wrists and I was sure this was it, she was going to rip them away in no uncertain terms. Determined to get what I can, while I can, I twist my mouth over her soft, plush lips, opening them to my tongue.

  And the next thing I know, she’s on her tiptoes and using the leverage of her grip on my wrists to strain again me, that unfamiliar soft, lush body plastered to the harder planes of my own so tightly a stray thought couldn’t slide between us. Her breath sloughs in rough rhythm against my lips, into the cavern of my mouth. And all I want is to breathe in when she breathes out.

  I whirl us a half turn and back her against the wall next to her dressing table. Without relinquishing her mouth, I release her head and skim my hands down her amazing curves. Cupping her ass, I haul her up.

  She jerks, but quickly gets her bearings and wraps her legs around my waist.

  Turns out she isn’t nude beneath that siren wrap after all. But when the crotch seam of a filmy pair of French knickers aligns perfectly with the erection straining the fly of my slacks, we both suck in a breath as if we’d touched naked skin to naked skin.

  I lift my head to look at her. The midnight-blue rimmed, lake-blue eyes gazing back at me have darkened several shades, and vivid color stains Lena’s cheeks. She returns my regard from beneath half-mast eyelashes. Slicks her tongue over her bottom lip.

  I groan and rock my mouth over hers once again.

  I’d just instigated a slow grind against her when a tap sounds at the door. Lena startles against me, then unlocks her legs from around my hips and squirms to be let down. Small distress sounds whisper in her throat.

  “Shh,” I murmur almost silently against her mouth. “Shh.” I draw my head back slightly to look at her.

  The room is beginning to darken and her front teeth gleam from between her parted lips. I glance fondly at the left incisor, ridiculously pleased to see it still at a slight angle to its center-tooth neighbor. I can’t stop myself from going in for another taste.

  Lena’s hands cupping my jaws block me—not to mention her calm-voiced, “Let me go.”

  Even stated in a low whisper, she sounds pretty damn sure about what she wants.

  I set her loose and step back.

  The knock sounds again. “Lena,” one of the Brasher sisters call. “Are you in there?”

  “I’m running late getting ready for my number.” Lena has to raise her voice to reply but she sounds completely confident—even as she presses a hand to her diaphragm and struggles to control the tempo of her breathing. “I’ll come by your room after the show, okay?”

  “Be sure to, ’cause Clara came up with a darb idea for what we can do tomorrow before work. See ya later, alligator.” And the sisters’ footsteps continue down the hall.

  Lena turns to me. “You need to go.”

  “I think we should tal—“

  “No. I need you to go.”

  So, I do. She is late getting ready for her act. And this was a huge mistake. It’s a good thing my hoofers interrupted.

  I might not have thought so in the heat of the moment, but… yeah. Sure.

  It is a damn good thing.

  Hell.

  Fortuitous, e
ven.

  4

  susan andersen

  There will be no more kissing

  LENA

  I wake up in a cold sweat late the next morning, thinking the same thing I fell asleep thinking: Ohmygoodness.

  Ohmygoodnessgracious.

  Oh. My. Goodness. Gracious.

  Agnes!

  Except for the top sheet, all my bedding is on the floor, a testament to my tossing, turning, sleep deprived night. Okay, for those of us in the club entertainment industry, a night’s sleep is a relative term, starting with the milkman’s four am run about the time we arrive home and ending whenever we wake up. Still, that period is our version of a night’s rest and I, for one, would be a whole lot happier not to have lost mine.

  Reluctantly giving up any hope of a return to dreamland, I roll out of bed just before noon. I collect my bath kit, throw in the new tube of Pepsodent toothpaste and bar of Lux soap I bought at Woolworth’s yesterday, then head for the communal bathroom down the hall.

  I have to admit I’ve harbored some regrets about passing on a sweet little apartment on Capital Hill when I was looking for a place in Seattle. I’m not sure why I didn’t grab it, really. I had sure liked it. Yet, I had instead moved into yet another Women’s Residence. Even though I would have had that lovely little space all to myself. And been closer to Will.

  “For pity’s sake, girl, that is neither here nor there now!” My regret over not taking the place no longer matters. In fact, it’s just as well I didn’t sign a lease on the little studio apartment up on Capitol Hill. At least this way I won’t be breaking another contract when I leave. Not to mention only having to forfeit a few days rent.

  Still, I’m dead tired of always having to share bathrooms and strictly scheduled meals or having to be back under lock and key by nine pm. Well, all right, that second matter doesn’t really apply. I am grateful that Mrs. Rodale, who runs the joint, grants me a break on the curfew rule because of the nature of my employment. The woman looks down her long nose at me for working in a speakeasy. But she did waive the curfew and give me a key so I am not locked out when I arrive back here at the crack of dawn.

  But that no longer matters, either. Because I cannot possibly stay on at The Twilight Room now. Not when Booker. . .not when I felt so. . .

  Well. It’s simply not thinkable, is it? I load some of my new toothpaste onto my brush and start scrubbing my teeth furiously.

  I sure wish Will was around, though. He’s my best friend. Okay, he is my one and only genuine, time-proven friend. I would love to lay all my feelings out for his input. Tell him about my sneaking, unwelcome hunger for Booker’s kisses, my anger and confusion over feeling anything positive for the man at all. Booker had some nerve introducing himself to me as if I were some stranger. When I was seventeen, he told me repeatedly that he loved me. Oh, how he told me!

  I think the very least he owed me night before last was a glimmer of recognition.

  I don’t discount how much my body has changed since our days in Walla Walla. Lord knows, I love to eat, so I gained weight once I left Blood of Christ and began getting meals with honest-to-God flavor. But for pity’s sake, my face, while softer and rounder, remains the same.

  I spit the toothpaste foam into the sink, then rinse my mouth and the sink bowl. Raising my head, I study myself in the mirror. Am I overreacting?

  I truly don’t think so, but Will would know. Will has a way of cutting through the garbage to find the bottom line in a situation. Especially the kind that jumps the rails the way this one has. Maybe it’s even within the realm of possibility he’ll tell me I’m overreacting. He might even say I don’t have to leave this job, which was supposed to be a huge boost to my career.

  On the other hand, he might say cut your losses, girl.

  But Will is in New York City, attending appointments with Life, Collier and Judge magazines, where he’s pitching his work and presenting his marvelous portfolio. He also scheduled an interview with an ad agency about a possible contract to provide illustrations for a couple of their clients. And if that isn’t enough to easily eat up more than twenty-four hours a day, he intends, should he have any spare time left over, to take his personal portfolio around to the top five art galleries he’d most like to see host a showing of his work. Not the commercial illustrations. His art.

  And I am happy for him, because this is a huge opportunity, and Lord knows no one deserves it more. Unfortunately, it is not so great for me. While he’s on the other side of the continent, I feel as though I’ve been thrown into the deep end of the pool. With no lifeguard on duty.

  None of which is Will’s fault, of course. But I’m drowning here.

  Hoping to shut down all the clatter and clamor in my head, I haul my pile of toiletries down the hall to get ready for the day.

  I arrive at the club early, prepared to tackle Booker, and beyond irritated with myself to realize how uneasy I am. I’m not usually the Nervous Nellie type, but I am definitely on edge and want to get this over with.

  When I don’t spot him in the lounge, I head directly to his office. Stopping at its door, I shake out my hands, draw a deep breath, hold it for several seconds, then slowly exhale. I hate that my heart is beating like the drummer’s entire kit when the house band gets to wailing mid-King Porter Stomp. Understanding for the first time what it means to gird one’s loins, I suck in yet another deep breath and give the solid wood door a good, strong rat-a-tat-tat.

  “Enter.”

  I almost laugh. Because, who says that? Most people would say c’mon in or ask who’s there. Matron Davidson used to snap Come, in a tone both cold and brusque, but then that was her to a T. And in her defense, Matron never claimed to be a charmer.

  So I can honestly say I have never heard anyone say Enter before. I turn the knob and let myself in.

  Booker is hunched over his desk, his tie hanging loose and his tailored jacket over the back of his chair. He’s scribbling something in a ledger book and looks industrious as all get-out.

  For all of ten seconds. Then he glances up, sees me and tosses his pen on the blotter. His chair creaks as he sprawls back in it. He swings his big feet up onto the desk. “Huh,” he says. “Didn’t expect you to show your face so soon.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Figured you’d dodge me until the impact of the kiss we shared faded.”

  Oh, you fat-headed, miserable…

  Swallowing my temper, I manage a creditably nonchalant shrug. “Guess it wasn’t as memorable for me as it was for you.”

  “Ouch.” He drops his feet to the floor but remains seated. “Still, interesting supposition. Maybe we should test that theory.”

  And, darn it to hell and back, I realize right then and there if I quit I will promptly negate my big Hey, doesn’t affect me stance. I will pluck out my eyelashes one by one before I’ll let him know that maybe, just maybe, his kiss did rattle me. Perhaps it even affected me enough to think the two of us had the potential to burn down the club.

  No. No, dang it! I square my shoulders. The kiss had been nowhere close to setting the joint on fire. Coaxing forth a few curls of smoke, maybe. But hardly in the neighborhood of torching the speakeasy. And if quitting without losing face is no longer on the table, I can at least use the words he threw at me last night to try to slant this gawd-awful push-me/pull-me the two of us share in my favor.

  And see how he likes it. “So, let me see if I understand this correctly. It’s okay for you to whine about professionalism when I deliver an itty-bitty, much deserved slap—“

  “Itty-bitty, my ass,” he mutters. “It damn near swiveled my head around my neck until I could see where I had been.” His sudden frown slants his dark brows toward his nose. “And men—former soldiers, by God—do not whine.”

  “—but at the same time,” I press on as though he hadn’t spoken, “you appear to have no difficulty believing it somehow is professional for you to press unwanted advances on me?”

  He leans
into the desk. Picks up his pen again and twirls it between lean fingers. “Oh, let’s have a little truth between us here, shall we.” He clearly doesn’t consider that an actual question. “My... advances, as you call them...were far from unwanted.”

  I realize my nerves have settled nicely and raise an eyebrow as I give him the maybe looks can kill stare I adopted when I was thirteen. I have utilized it to my advantage ever since. Its steady refusal to waver, along with an accompanying lack of expression, tends to unnerve people enough to prevent them from digging too deeply into my own messed up emotions at any given moment. “Believe what you wish,” I tack on for good measure in a bored tone.

  And manage not to crow when I see the slightest twitch of uncertainty cross his face.

  The look quickly vanishes and he squares his shoulders. “It’s a good thing you didn’t come here tonight to quit,” he says coolly. “Because we really would have a problem then.”

  Oh, God, did he suspect I had? I inhale a slow, stealthy breath and keep my expression bland. “Would we?

  “Damn right. Slapping me was strike one, doll. Slapping me in my own establishment, in front of other employees was strike two. Quitting on me would have been—”

  “Yeah, yeah—strike three.” I buff my right hand fingernails against my breast and study their pretty shine. “Seems to me, either way the bottom line is I’d be out.”

  “True. But you signed a binding contract. Breaking it two nights into your employment would have been the height of unprofessionalism. And had you done so, I would have sued you into the poor house and saw to it you were blackballed from ever singing in Washington State again.”

  Looking into his eyes and listening to the flat, assured tone, I believed him.

  Good Lord has he changed from the boy I once knew and loved! Young Booker had been full of fun. Oh, he’d been less than happy about his relationship with his father, because the two of them butted heads on a regular basis. Yet, looking back, I can see he hadn’t been nearly as mature as the two of us considered ourselves to be at the time. Because even as he’d performed small acts of rebellion, he’d had a difficult time flat-out standing up to Clyde Jameson.