One Plus One Makes Marriage

by Marie Ferrarella

  She accompanied him to the door. Feeling awkward, he kissed her lightly on the cheek. “Thanks for the movie education.”

  A sweetness filtered through her as she brushed her fingers along her cheek. “Anytime. No charge.”

  Unable to help himself, he watched her mouth as she spoke. Temptation tugged at him, and he struggled to resist.

  She was wrong, he thought. There was a charge. And the price was his soul.

  “See you,” he murmured. Leaving before he changed his mind and couldn’t.

  Chapter Eleven

  A small woman with what Lance figured had to be the world’s pointiest elbows drove one into his side as she tried to get him to move. She was angling for a better view of one of the displays Melanie had laid out in her shop.

  The shop was full of people, mostly women, all of whom had been invited to a tea to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of The Thief of Hearts, a movie he’d never even heard of. But Bess had.

  It was because of Bess he was here. He’d been roped into coming. But, he supposed, he really had no one to blame but himself. If he hadn’t mentioned the tea to Bess, when he’d been trying to keep Melanie from attending her party, Bess wouldn’t have known about it. Bess never forgot anything. So when the date rolled around, she’d called him up and asked if he wanted to accompany her to the shop, seeing as she didn’t know where it was and he did.

  If Bess thought she was fooling him, he had news for her. He knew of few women who were as independent as she was. She didn’t need him to show her where the shop was. Bess just wanted him to come along so that she could throw him together with McCloud again.

  No matter how he tried, Lance thought as he moved out of the forceful customer’s elbow range, his path kept crossing McCloud’s, willingly or otherwise.

  Out of boredom he glanced at a tag to see how much she was asking for the dress he found himself pushed up against. He blinked twice to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. Was she serious?

  “Found something you like?”

  He looked up into Melanie’s amused expression. “Do people really pay prices like this?” Lance held up the small tag that Joy had written out and attached to the sleeve of a deep green velvet gown. The gown looked too damn heavy to maneuver around in. Who in their right mind would even want it? “I mean, this is four figures.”

  “You’d be surprised.” Melanie smoothed out a wrinkle in the skirt. “People pay a lot for nostalgia.”

  There was nostalgia and then there was insanity, he thought. “Apparently.” He let go of the tag, still shaking his head. “You’d really be doing well for yourself if you weren’t always giving the merchandise away.”

  She couldn’t quite read his expression. Was he mocking her or only making a casual observation? No, she amended, it might have been an observation, but there was nothing casual about Lance. There was an intensity just beneath the surface no matter what he did or said. It was part of his sensual appeal.

  “I don’t always give it away,” she told him. “Just at my discretion.”

  Lance hadn’t a clue as to how McCloud’s mind worked, only that it was so totally unconventional that any guess he made would turn out to be wrong. “And that would be...?”

  She looked at him, for a moment forgetting everyone else in the crowded store. The turnout was even larger than she’d hoped for. It looked as if every single customer she’d ever sold anything to had shown up. Luckily in shifts, but the store was still jammed. Thank God she’d thought to take on extra people to help with the sales.

  “When my heart tells me to.” A playful smile alleviated the serious moment. “But my body likes to eat, so it doesn’t let my heart do too much talking.”

  He laughed shortly. “I wouldn’t have thought you had a logical bone in you.” Just a soft, sweet body he was acutely aware of being far too close for him to ignore indefinitely.

  “Personally I find logic to be very overrated.” She cocked her head, studying him. His features had softened a little. She wondered if that was because he was here with Bess, or if, just maybe, she was getting to him a little. “Do you ever listen to your heart, Lance?”

  Now that was an overrated entity. All it did was lead you into trouble. “Only to see if it’s beating or not.”

  Because he wanted something to do with his hands before he gave in to the very strong impulse that was drumming through him, he picked up a white satin mask that was lying on the counter. There was no tag on it.

  He held the mask up to her. “How much is this?”

  She lowered her eyes to the item, then raised them again. He could almost feel her look feathering along his face. His gut tightened like a fist.

  “For you?”

  If he were asking for favors from her, they wouldn’t involve something so inconsequential as a white mask. “For anyone.”

  Melanie looked at it again, trying to remember what she and Joy had agreed on. “Two hundred and fifty dollars.”

  He let out a low whistle. “Seems kind of steep don’t you think?” There was only a little bit of material involved. It was the kind of mask worn over a person’s eyes. Like Zorro, he thought, if Zorro had favored white. “Ski masks are going for fifteen dollars, and they cover a lot more. Halloween masks for less.”

  She laughed, taking it from him and carefully arranging it again on the counter. “It’s not the mask, it’s what it represents. This was the mask Juliet wore when she first saw Romeo in the Julian Rogers movie version of the play. Did you see it?” He gave her a look that said she had to be kidding. She laughed in response. “You’re right, what was I thinking?”

  Her laugh went right through him, burrowing deep into his belly. Conspiring with her scent, it was undoing him at a rapid rate. He looked around for a means of escape. Maybe he’d just find Bess and tell her he’d wait for her in the car until she had her fill of this place.

  He’d probably be sitting there until Christmas if he worded it that way, he thought darkly.

  He didn’t have to find Bess. She found him, although it was clear that the object of her search was Melanie. Her round face was flushed, not just from the close quarters, but with pleasure. She took Melanie’s arm for extra support.

  “Melanie, this place is absolutely fabulous. It’s like being in wonderland.” Her eyes shifted momentarily to her nephew. “Lance, why didn’t you tell me about Melanie’s shop?”

  Thinking quickly, Melanie spared Lance the effort of coming up with an excuse. “Wonderful is in the eyes of the beholder.” Even as she worked the floor, she’d watched Bess’s progress and her reaction to various items. She never tired of the thrill of seeing the shop for the first time through someone else’s eyes. “See anything you like?”

  “Everything,” Bess breathed. “I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven.”

  Lance shuddered, his eyes shutting out the sight. “Heaven a movie theater. Now there’s a frightening thought.”

  “Only if the popcorn is stale,” Melanie quipped. There was a woman impatiently circling the register, looking for a clerk. Melanie squeezed Bess’s arm. “If there’s something special that catches your eye, let me know. I have to see about a customer, but I’ll be right back.”

  Bess waited long enough for Melanie to be relatively out of earshot. “The special thing that’s caught my eye is her.”

  Lance watched Melanie ring up the sale. She was telling the woman something that made the latter look with awed pleasure at the item she’d just purchased. From where he stood, it looked like a common letter opener. Probably used by some “dashing” leading man to pick his teeth, he thought drily, shaking his head. Melanie was just chock-full of stories.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, distracted, “she’s something, all right.”

  If he’d have let her, Bess would have hugged him. But Lance hated displays of affection in public. Still, it didn’t diminish the relief she felt. He was finally coming around. “Well, at least you noticed. It’s a start.”

  Her wo
rds penetrated after a beat. Lance looked at her sharply. “Just as long as you don’t start, Bess.” He didn’t have to guess was going on in her head. He knew Bess too well. “Things are fine just the way they are.”

  “No,” Bess disagreed firmly, “they’re not. And the sooner you admit that, the sooner you can go on with your life. I didn’t raise you to become a bitter old man years before your time.”

  The affection he bore for Bess made him smile at her declaration. “When can I become a bitter old man?” he teased.

  She sniffed. “When you hit a hundred.” With a heavy gait, she moved away from him and toward the armoire that had caught her eye when she had first walked into the shop. She’d returned to it three times now in the past half hour. Each time she did, it looked even better to her than it had the last.

  Melanie finished ringing up the sale in time to see the expression on Bess’s face. She knew unabashed love when she saw it.

  Another customer tried to get her attention, but she tactfully turned her over to Joy and made her way back to Bess. Lance’s aunt was running her hand lovingly over the highly polished finish.

  They were made for each other, Melanie thought. “So, this catch your fancy?”

  Bess nodded, hardly able to tear her eyes away. The hand carved piece was decorated with the likeness of a man and a woman looking longingly at each other. When the doors were opened, they parted. It was deliciously romantic.

  “It’s from Robin’s Woman, isn’t it?” Bess sighed. “I must have seen that movie a dozen times. Robin hides in here until Maid Marian comes into the room and goes to bed.”

  The romance of that eluded Lance, who had just walked over. “Sounds like someone they’d arrest for being a Peeping Tom these days,” he pointed out.

  The bald statement left Bess stymied. “Where did I go wrong with you?”

  Taking her arm, Melanie subtly turned her back to the armoire. “Men don’t like admitting that they’re romantic,” she told the older woman. “Doesn’t seem quite masculine to them to feel like that. But they do, deep down.”

  She said it with way too much conviction to suit him, Lance thought. As if she thought she could read him as easily as a want ad. Well, she couldn’t.

  Could she?

  Ignoring her, he ran his hand along the curved piece. “At least it’s sturdy.” The fact surprised him.

  Melanie heartily agreed. “It had to be. Jean-Luc De-Ion spent the better part of a whole day crouching in it. I think they reshot that one scene thirty-seven times. He threatened to bum the armoire when the movie was over.” Melanie unlocked the doors for Bess and showed her the armoire’s interior. “Fortunately he got sidetracked.”

  Bess nodded, getting into the spirit of the story. “Allison Evans.”

  “His third wife.” Melanie smiled, remembering. “Broke a lot of hearts that summer when he got married.”

  He had no idea who the hell John Luke was. But he picked up on her tone and he didn’t like it. And he liked even less that it bothered him. “Yours?”

  Melanie nodded. She made no effort to deny it. “Mine.” And then, because she saw the expression on his face, an expression she knew he would have been horrified to discover he was wearing, she added, “I was eight.”

  “Oh.” He shrugged as if it didn’t matter to him one way or the other. It annoyed him that it did, but McCloud didn’t have to know that.

  Throughout the exchange, Bess had been debating with herself and arrived at a decision. “I’ll take it,” she announced.

  She reached for the price tag. Melanie was faster and ripped it off before Bess had a chance to see it.

  “All right,” Melanie said cheerfully. “I’ll just ring it up for you.”

  Now that she had made her decision, Bess braced herself for the blow. “How much shall I write the check for?”

  Melanie never missed a beat as she glanced at the tag and answered, “Five hundred dollars.”

  Lance’s brow rose in mute surprise. He’d taken a look at the tag when he had examined the piece. It was priced at six times that.

  Even Bess seemed highly skeptical. “Melanie, dear,” she began tactfully, “I’ll admit I’m not rolling in money, but I do like to acquire what I get honestly.”

  Melanie looked at her as if she didn’t know what she was talking about. “No, really. It’s five hundred. Here, look.” Opening her palm, Melanie displayed the tag for Bess’s perusal.

  Lance looked at it over his aunt’s shoulder. The price tag in Melanie’s hand was written out for five hundred dollars even. That was cheaper than a department store price. Just what was she up to?

  “It’s been here ever since I opened the shop. I’ve reduced the price a couple of times already, but no one’s been interested in it enough to give it a home.” Melanie frowned at the piece as if it were an annoying relative who was more trouble than he was worth. “You’d be doing me a favor if you bought it.”

  Bess was still doubtful, but she knew when it was futile to argue. Melanie had that in common with Lance, she mused. God help their children.

  “Can’t resist doing a favor, now, can I?” Bess looked around the shop for somewhere to sit so she could write the check. “Now, shall I make the check out to the shop or to you?”

  Melanie indicated the chair to her left. John Wayne had sat in it during the filming of McClintock, but that was a story for another time.

  “The shop.” She looked at Lance significantly. “I can deliver it to your place tonight after I close, if I have help.”

  If she could practically give the piece away, he could certainly come and help her load it up so she could deliver it.

  “You’ll have help,” he assured her grudgingly.

  Her eyes sparkled in that annoying, enticing way of hers. “Lucky for me you’re around.”

  Luck, he thought, had very little to do with it.

  She was a hell of a lot stronger than she looked, Lance thought, slamming the back of the van shut. He tested the doors to make sure they were locked. He’d returned at six-thirty as promised, fully prepared to wrestle with the heavy piece of furniture himself. Melanie had insisted on helping, even when he’d growled at her to stand back.

  Ignoring his dismissal, she’d picked up one side, and between the two of them, they’d gotten it into the van, if not with ease, at least without the maximum effort he’d expected. Hopping up inside, she quickly tied the armoire down so that it wouldn’t move around within the van when they drove.

  The woman was just one surprise after another.

  “I might have known,” Lance muttered, climbing into the passenger side of her van.

  She waited until he’d slid the seat belt into place before turning on the ignition. “Known what?” She backed up slowly until she was out of the space and easing onto the street.

  “That that slightly blue haze I noticed coming from under your blouse was your superheroine costume.” He rolled down the window, unwilling to sit in a sealed compartment with her perfume seducing him. “Can you fly, too, along with having super strength?”

  Melanie just barely squeaked through the light. She glanced in her rearview mirror to make sure there were no police cars in the vicinity—just in case. “You’re exaggerating.”

  He drummed his fingers along the rim of the open window. “I wasn’t aware that you could tell the difference.”

  Melanie pushed her hair away from her face. The breeze challenged her for control, whipping it back into her eyes. She moved it aside again.

  “It’s all in the leverage,” she explained. “The gaffers who set up the scenes on the set taught me that.” She spared him a glance. He wasn’t really talking about getting the armoire into the van. “What’s this about?”

  Because Bess had been around earlier, he hadn’t gotten the chance to ask her. He asked now. “I want to know how you managed to turn a three-thousand-dollar price tag into one that said five hundred.”

  “Oh, that.” She’d almost forgotten about
that. “Would you believe magic?’

  A few weeks ago he would have told her what she could do with that explanation. Now, however, he was having doubts about the way he perceived things.

  “I’m beginning to.”

  He looked at her for a moment, then looked away. This was getting bad. He found himself wanting her all the time. Maybe it was just a matter of wanting something that he couldn’t have. Maybe if he did have her, the mystery, the urge would go away and leave him in peace. It was worth thinking about.

  No, thinking about making love with her was only going to make it worse.

  He was making himself crazy.

  “And that’s what worries me,” he added.

  She gave him a break and explained. “Actually, it comes back to leverage, just a different kind. Sleight of hand, Lance.” The reference meant nothing to him. “I had another price tag in my hand. I wrote it out when I saw the way she was looking at the armoire. I knew she couldn’t afford it.” She glanced at him. “Remember the dalmatian I gave you?”

  The light dawned. “The one that wound up in my pocket even when I said I didn’t want it.”

  His bravado had less conviction to it than before. He didn’t believe the denial himself anymore, either, Melanie thought. “You wanted it. You just didn’t want anything from me. At the time.”

  It irked him that she thought she had his number. Never mind that there was a chance she might be right. “What I want from you, McCloud, is to be left alone.”

  Melanie didn’t even blink an eye. “You don’t mean that.”

  He sighed, temporarily surrendering. She was being nice to Bess, and he didn’t feel like arguing with her. “No, I don’t, but it was worth a shot saying it.” He studied her profile. It was a soft, delicate face that begged for a man’s hand. His hand.

  Lance curled his fingers in his lap. “Is that how you operate? You keep after people until you wear them down?”