Driven to Distraction (Silhouette Desire S.)

by Dixie Browning; Sheri Whitefeather

  Lathering her hair, she wondered if Silver culled through the applicants, deliberately choosing the ones he wanted to include. Using what criterion, she wondered. She hadn’t been particularly surprised to see so few men. The surprising thing had been that so many of the women were over fifty. It only solidified her suspicion that he was far more interested in money than in sex or romance.

  On the other hand, he’d been hanging all over Suzy at supper tonight. At this point Suzy was more interested in Ben Hunter, but maybe that didn’t mean she wouldn’t cooperate for the good of the mission. Lumber money was as good as pickle money, especially when the only heir just happened to be an attractive daughter of marriageable age.

  It never occurred to Maggie to consider herself a candidate. Her father sold insurance. He didn’t own the company—didn’t even manage the three-man agency, which was one of the reasons Maggie had attended a community college instead of university; why she’d gone to work for a pittance at the Suburban Record until she could get a real job at the Twin-City Journal. Even in-state tuition cost a fortune, and besides, her father needed her at home. Left to himself he’d have ended up eating bacon and eggs and real butter and drinking four-percent milk in spite of knowing better.

  Before her mother had left they’d dined more often than not on things like tofu, tahini and soybeans in one form or another. Maggie had joined her father in pigging out on junk food between meals, but now that she was older she had settled on a more moderate path. Whole-grain, low-fat, with lots of fresh fruit and vegetables. If she occasionally backslid when she was away from home, that was nobody’s business but her own. As long as she had only one functional parent, she fully intended to keep him that way. Let her mother go on drifting from one mushroom field to another, playing her zither, smoking pot and remembering every six months or so that she still had a family back east. Fortunately, Maggie had inherited a broad streak of practicality from her father, enough to take care of him and anyone else who needed it.

  “Any hot water left?” Suzy was in the room when Maggie got back from her shower.

  “Gobs. Look, I need you to do me a favor.” And so she explained about Mary Rose and why she was really here.

  “Geez, I don’t know, Riley.” Leaning back on her elbows, Suzy admired her colorful toenails. “I sort of had my eye on the cowboy. Besides, Perry spent most of his time with that lady with the buzz cut and the three-carat diamond.”

  “Georgia, I think her name is.” Maggie sat on the room’s only chair, which lacked a back and could more properly be termed a stool. She toweled her hair. “The cowboy will wait. All I need is one good example of Perry reeling out the same old line he used on Mary Rose, and I’ll have him dead to rights.”

  “Would she believe you?”

  “If I could get it on tape, it would be even better.” Maggie waited hopefully for Suzy to offer her body to be wired. When no such offer was forthcoming, she shrugged and said, “She knows I never lie…unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “If I get the goods on Silver, do I get dibs on the cowboy?”

  “Unless he’s married or otherwise out of the running, he’s all yours,” Maggie said magnanimously, as if it were up to her. If she had anything to say about it, she might not be so generous.

  “He’s not wearing a ring.” Suzy went through a few lethargic yoga movements. “There’s my day’s exercise. I’m a firm believer in moderation in all things.”

  Maggie continued to towel her hair, her mind on the man who kept popping into her thoughts like a sexy poltergeist. “He’s probably not going to model, since he signed the register like all the rest of us.”

  “Besides, if he were a model, he’d be busy trying on jockstraps.”

  “Perish the thought,” Maggie said, grinning.

  “I don’t want to perish the thought, it’s too tempting.”

  “About tomorrow—” Maggie was determined not to lose sight of her mission. “We’re all going to have to paint something. How good are you?”

  Suzy shrugged. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’ve never even tried to draw anything since I used to do stuff in school, mostly stick figures standing under a rainbow.”

  “What do you bet we’re not the only amateurs here?”

  “Um-hmm…” Maggie was having trouble picturing Ben Hunter as an artist, although she couldn’t have said quite why. Maybe because of his boots. Or maybe those powerful arms. She’d be willing to bet those strong hands and muscular forearms had done more than wield a paintbrush.

  “But then, hey—if it weren’t for us amateurs, Perry would be out of a job, right?” Suzy said brightly.

  After that, they talked about clothes—whether or not they’d brought the right kind—and boyfriends. Suzy was currently juggling three; Maggie didn’t have time for even one, although she had her eye on a young high school coach.

  By the time the new roommate, Ann Ehringhaus, showed up, Maggie was already yawning. After introductions all around, Suzy pointed out the amenities, such as they were. When Ann sneezed for the third time, Maggie murmured something about allergies. While the other two women talked softly, Maggie fell asleep and dreamed of a Ben Hunter who segued into one of those famous male statues wearing a fig leaf and a strategically draped shawl, with a quiver full of watercolor brushes on his back. He was leering at her.

  Mercy! No wonder she woke up even before the alarm went off with the mother of all headaches.

  Leaving the other two women still sleeping, Maggie dressed quietly and tiptoed into the kitchen, following the beguiling aroma of freshly brewed coffee. When a shaft of sunlight slanting through the window struck her, she winced and shut her eyes.

  “Not a morning person, hmm?”

  Her stomach did a funny little lurch and she blinked at the figure silhouetted against the open back door. Wouldn’t you know the first person she’d see before she could even wash down a handful of pills would be Apollo in person. If he’d been wearing a fig leaf and shawl, she’d have run screaming off down the hill.

  Instead he was wearing the same faded jeans he’d worn yesterday, which were as good as a roadmap pointing out strategic points of interest. Her good-morning sounded more like the snarl of a pit bull.

  “It’s probably the altitude,” he told her solicitously.

  She shot him a suspicious look, and he said, “Headache, right? Flying does it to me, even in a pressurized cabin. We’re not all that high here, but—”

  “Thanks, I don’t need a diagnosis,” she growled. “Lack of sleep always gives me a headache.” With any luck, it would be gone before the first class started—and so would he.

  “Me, I slept like a log.”

  She shot him a saccharine smile. “Goody for you.”

  “We’re on our own from now on.” Reaching inside a cabinet, he took out a box of sweetened cereal and frowned at the picture of tiny, pastel-colored shapes.

  Maggie had brought her own cereal. It was whole grain and probably not as tasty as the one he was holding. His arms and his hands were tanned. There was no lighter circle on his third finger, left hand, to indicate he had recently worn a ring.

  He said, “I checked the refrigerator. The kitchen’s stocked with basics, but they’re pretty, ah—basic. Eggs, bacon. Bunch of green stuff.”

  “Do you have to talk so much?” She winced as she crossed through the patch of sunlight again.

  “Reckon not. Reckon we could just dance.”

  She goggled at him. No other word to describe it. She did her best to blot out the memory of the impressive creature with his undraped loins and his quiver of brushes, that had haunted her early morning dreams. The image was already losing the sharp edges, but she could still see those muscular calves and the flat, ridged abdomen where the shawl draped low on one hip before swinging up to his shoulder.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said haughtily, “I’d rather not talk before I’ve had my morning pint.”

  “Yes, ma’am. Better
warn you, though—it’s pretty strong. You might want to water it down some. Be somebody along pretty soon to start the bacon and eggs.”

  She mimicked talking with her fingers. He looked suitably chastened and covered his mouth with his hand. And darn it, he really did have gorgeous hands. Maggie wasn’t entirely certain what an artistic hand was supposed to look like, but artistic or not, his long, square-tipped fingers were perfectly proportioned for the square palm.

  And if she’d ever even considered a man’s hands in that respect, she had to be plum out of her mind. What the devil was happening to her normally sharp-as-a-tack brain? She was here on a mission. She didn’t have time for this kind of distraction.

  She poured herself a mug of coffee and by the time she turned around, Ben had placed a jug of whole milk and a can of evaporated on the table, along with a sugar bowl, a jar of honey and a stack of pink packets of sweetener. He grinned as if he’d offered her the crown jewels.

  “Thank you,” she croaked. Croaked because her voice was always rusty first thing in the morning. She was used to seeing her father off to work in silence and taking her pint of coffee into the ex-utility room she laughingly called her office, where she worked on her column until noon. If any calls came in, she let the machine take them.

  “Really,” she said when he continued to look at her as if she were something he’d found under a microscope. Or under a rock.

  “Look, you’re a nice man and I’m a grungy curmudgeon. I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is, okay?”

  Bemused was the only word she could think of to describe the way he looked at her. As if whatever it was he’d discovered under the microscope—or the rock—had suddenly launched into a full orchestra rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner.” She sometimes had that effect on men. They didn’t know what to make of her, and so mostly, they made nothing. Which suited her just fine, it really did. It always had.

  Until just recently…

  Without a word, Ben Hunter eased up from the spoke-backed kitchen chair, tipped her a nod and let himself out onto the side porch. A few moments later she could hear the creak of the swing.

  Darn it, why did she do that? She knew all about women who were their own worst enemy. So certain men wouldn’t like them that they went out of their way to prove they didn’t care. She’d written about that kind of behavior. The thing was, she’d never before realized she followed the pattern.

  As the first class began to take shape, each of the several long tables filled, some with three students, a few with four. Maggie, Suzy and the latecomer, Ann Ehringhaus, chose a smaller table near the back of the studio. Without intending to, Maggie looked around for Ben and found him setting up several tables away with two women and a guy who looked like G. Gordon Liddy—same bald head, same beetle brows, but a smaller mustache.

  There were no easels. There were also no chairs. Suzy muttered something about a half-ass operation. Ann sneezed. Maggie shifted restlessly and considered giving up on this whole crazy idea. What had started as a simple rescue mission and expanded to a story op—M. L. Riley, embedded somewhere in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains—was looking more like an expensive mistake.

  Hardly her first. She simply hadn’t thought things through, and now she was about to be exposed as the fraud she really was. She could no more paint a picture than she could hop on a broomstick and fly. What on earth had made her believe she could pull it off?

  From somewhere off-stage, music started up, screeched to a halt and then started again. To the strains of something vaguely Celtic, vaguely New Age, Perry made his grand entrance, scattering smiles all around. He was wearing his trademark beret, even though the temperature was already in the mid-seventies and the old house evidently didn’t run to air conditioning. He took his place at a table in front that had been set up with a child’s plastic beach pail filled with water, a big, smeary palate, an enormous sheet of paper on a drawing board and an alabaster vase filled with at least a dozen brushes of all sizes and shapes.

  “So that’s what all the plastic pails are for,” Maggie murmured indicating the yellow one beside her stack of stuff.

  “You’ll have to fill and empty your own. Perry’s the only one who gets serviced,” Ann whispered.

  “Now,” the tall, willowy artist said, his mellifluous voice blending with the music, “I’ll start off with a demonstration and then you’ll all have half an hour to do your version of what I’ve painted. We want quick and sloppy today. This is just a loosening-up exercise. By the way, how many of you can still touch your toes?”

  Maggie looked at Suzy, who shrugged. For the first time since she’d arrived the night before, Ann smiled. “Wait, you’ll see,” she whispered.

  Across the room, Ben wondered what the hell the guy meant by that question. And what was with all the flutes and harps? To cover up the groans from people who hadn’t touched their toes in decades? Hell yes, he could touch his toes. He might be on the shady side of thirty, but he could still take down a cream puff like Silver with one hand tied behind him.

  Only this time he was going to do it nice and legal. Scare the hell out of him so that nobody’s gullible granny would get taken for a ride on Hi-Ho Silver.

  Bracing his feet apart, Ben crossed his arms over his chest and waited for the show to begin. Beside him, Janie Burger planted her hands on her hips and did the same. Georgia said something about not enough liniment in the world to make her try it, and Charlie chuckled.

  Meanwhile, in the front of the room, Perry Silver had already started on the morning’s masterpiece, working flat on the table. From time to time he pursed his lips, stepped back, tilted his head and muttered an unintelligible incantation, after which, while his audience tried vainly to see what he was doing, he would lunge forward to add another touch. Gradually a streak of muddy color appeared on the floor where he repeatedly slung wet paint from his brush.

  “No wonder the floors in here look like sh—like sugar,” Ben muttered. “Why the devil doesn’t he hold the thing up so we can see what the—so we can see what he’s doing?” Out of respect for his associates, he was trying to cull the profanity from his vocabulary, but it wasn’t easy.

  “With watercolor, mostly you do it flat so you can tilt it whatever way you want the paint to flow,” Janie whispered.

  “Oh. Right.” Going undercover as an artist might not be the swiftest idea he’d ever had.

  Georgia nudged him and whispered, “Did the brochure say anything about having to pass a physical first?”

  With a slow smile, Ben shook his head. The lady with the white buzz cut smelled like his granny. Combination of almond-scented hand lotion and arthritis-strength liniment. It reminded him of why he was here.

  Silver glanced up with a boyish grin and said, “I know, I know, it seems like forever, but this little bit over here just simply isn’t working. Give me another minute, dears, all right?”

  Dears?

  There was a general shuffling of tired feet. Someone sneezed—the latecomer with the allergies, probably.

  Someone snickered. Had to be Maggie. He glanced around, and sure enough, her hand was covering her mouth and her eyes were alight with mischief. Today she was wearing a sleeveless blue chambray thing with what looked like a man’s undershirt underneath. On her, it looked just fine.

  Ben winked at her. Last time he remembered winking at a woman he’d been about fifteen, all beered up and looking for action.

  Found it, too, if memory served.

  God, he’d had some narrow escapes. This just might turn out to be one more in a long list, unless he could keep his mind on his mission.

  “You’re at the wrong table, hon,” Janie whispered. Her pastel-colored hair was held back this morning with a twisted scarf. She was wearing black tights again along with a baggy pink sweatshirt sporting a risqué slogan. It occurred to him that maybe no one had told her she was pushing seventy.

  You go, lady, he encouraged silently.

  “Did you
say something, Miss…Riley, isn’t it?” The maestro looked up, light from the north-facing windows emphasizing the bags under his eyes. Ben figured the picture on the cover of the brochure had been either heavily retouched or taken quite a few years earlier.

  “Sorry. I was just—just eager to see what you’ve done.”

  Bless her heart, she was lying through her pearly whites. Ben winked again. It had to be a twitch. Maybe an ingrown eyelash.

  Then Silver whipped out a hair dryer, switched it on and waved it over whatever he’d just done. Probably another “investment” like those Miss Emma had paid a whole slew of social security money for. If there was any way he could squeeze a refund out of this cheesy bastard he intended to do it.

  “Oh, my, he’s done it again,” murmured Georgia as Perry propped his drawing board up on the easel so that it faced the class. She applauded. A few others picked it up, but Silver waved his hand and the applause quickly faded.

  “Now, using my feeble attempt as an example, let’s all see what we can come up with. Quickly, quickly—let the medium know who’s boss.”

  Let the medium know who was boss? What the hell was that supposed to mean? Ben glanced over his shoulder and happened to catch Maggie’s eye. She shrugged. He shook his head. At least this time they were in agreement. A regular meeting of the minds. He could think of several other areas where he wouldn’t mind meeting her.

  “You have thirty minutes,” Silver said. “Impressions only, we’ll get to details later in the week.”

  Charlie, on the far end of Ben’s table, asked if there were any chairs. Perry lifted his eyebrows, but Charlie, a high school biology teacher a year away from retirement, was not intimidated. “In my classroom I stand,” he stated. “On vacation, I sit unless I’ve got a golf club in my hand.”

  Ben wondered what the hell the older man was doing here when he could be outside in the fresh air beating the stuffing out of a little white ball?