Balancing Act

by Fern Michaels

  Dory bit her tongue to keep from replying. She could see little that she and Sylvia Rossiter had in common, particularly in matters of taste.

  “Lily Dayton is a lovely, sweet person, as you must have seen.” Dory wondered if Griff was aware of how his voice changed when he spoke of Lily Dayton. “She’s wrapped up in her baby and so’s Rick. They really and totally live for one another. She loves to bake and cook and fuss in the house. She had a garden this summer that was mind-boggling. Rick said she canned vegetables and fruits for weeks on end. She has a cold closet in the basement where she keeps all the things she cans. It’s remarkable,” he said in an approving voice. “Rick said she knitted all the baby’s blankets and sweaters last winter. Their house, while not as large and expensive as the Rossiters’, is a showpiece. Lily refinished all the furniture herself, hooked the rugs, sanded down the woodwork, and repainted it. She has some priceless antiques that she’s collected since she and Rick got married. I’ll bet she can help you when you start decorating our place.”

  Our place. How wonderful it sounded. But he was wrong. Lily Dayton would have no part in her decorations. This was something she was going to do on her own. Imperceptibly, she moved a little closer to the door. She was annoyed. Did he have to be so damn complimentary where Lily Dayton was concerned? It surprised her and rankled that Griff had never even alluded to the fact that he admired homemaking. And babies. Maybe it was the baby that made him so agreeable and . . . just what the hell was it, she wondered. Was she jealous? Of course she was jealous. She wanted Griff to look at her the way he looked at Lily. She wanted to hear that approving tone in his voice when he spoke about her and her accomplishments. She inched still closer to the door. What could he say after he said, “Dory works for Soiree magazine in New York.” Now he could say she was going for her doctorate. Big deal. She suddenly realized she would never get that reverent approval unless she singlehandedly canned eighty-seven quarts of string beans. Men! She didn’t think she was going to like Lily Dayton.

  “By the way. You were a knockout. Everyone liked you. Sylvia will be after you to find out where you get your clothes. You looked every inch New York and Fifth Avenue. New dress, huh?”

  “Not really. It’s three days old.” Dory grinned. It was okay now. Now he noticed her and was paying her compliments. There for a minute she had felt like the forgotten woman. He approved of her and the way she dressed. He approved of her.

  “When do your classes start?”

  “I thought I’d come down early next Friday for final registration. I have Katy doing all the paperwork and making the phone calls. I don’t anticipate any problems.”

  “Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle the freelance work and school, not to mention the house?”

  There it was again. Keeping house. Homemaking. Was that what he wanted? A homemaker?

  “Of course I can handle it. We’re just two people, so how much housekeeping can there be? You aren’t messy and neither am I. If we both pick up after ourselves, there shouldn’t be much of a problem. If I must, I can engage a cleaning person once a week. I don’t want you to start worrying about me and how I’m going to cope. You have enough on your mind without all of this. Let me handle this end of it, Griff.” Even to her own ears she sounded so certain, so confident. But was she? If she were back in New York, at Soiree, among people she knew and places that were familiar, her confidence would be well founded. Here in Washington, everything was new—new people, new situations, the pressures of school, making a home for herself and for Griff . . . why, she didn’t even know where the grocery market was or where to get a really fine cut of steak. Dry cleaners . . . Dory gulped back a wave of doubt. She would handle it, she must handle it. Smiling, she decided to cross those bridges when she came to them. For now, she’d concentrate on Griff. “What do you say we get back to that motel where we can be alone. Together?”

  “She’s a mind reader, too,” Griff grinned in the darkness. “I really dislike bucket seats in automobiles. Wiggle closer, we can at least hold hands.”

  Dory reached for his hand and gave a little involuntary shiver. “Cold?” Griff asked. “The evenings always get damp this time of year, even here in Virginia. Autumn is hard upon us, gal, it’s already the middle of September, or almost. Only seventeen shopping weeks till Christmas. Think you can handle it?”

  Dory laughed. “Goon. Reminding me about Christmas when I’m still in the midst of setting up a home for us. And school . . .” Her tone softened, becoming a little breathless. “Christmas. Our first Christmas, Griff!”

  “Home. Our first home, Dory,” he mimicked her dreamy tone, teasing her. Then more seriously, “Would you mind if I invited my mother for at least a part of the Christmas festivities?”

  “Not a bit. If you think she’d come . . .”

  “Mom doesn’t set herself up as a judge, Dory. You should know that. Mom would love to share the holidays with us.”

  “As long as you’re talking family, I have this zany aunt who actually advocates the racier side of life . . .”

  “It’s settled then.” Griff squeezed her hand. “We’ll invite Pixie, too!”

  Dory settled back against the seat, still holding fast to Griff’s hand, resting it on the top of his thigh, feeling the roll of the muscles as he manipulated the gas pedal and the brake. It was nice to know that he was thinking ahead to Christmas and the holidays and that she was first and foremost in his plans. There would be a continuity to their lives, a kind of settling down, a comforting safeness. With Griff, she knew exactly where she would be for Christmas and exactly what she would be doing. No more jaunting off for winter holidays at the Christmas season. No more touring around the ski slopes or lying in the Bahama sun with others who also lacked a connection and permanency in their lives. With Griff she had gained a definition of time and place. In December, at the holidays, she would be here, with the man she loved, in their very own home. If the excitement of spontaneous, last-minute plans was a thing of the past, that was all to the good . . . wasn’t it?

  When Griff and Dory closed the door to their motel room, he took her into his embrace, biting lightly on the tender flesh beneath her ear. Dory heard herself laughing, delighted that Griff was once again the attentive lover he had always been. His hands impatiently moved to the tiny buttons at the back of her dress, hastily working the fastening, eager to bare the creamy skin of her shoulders and breasts.

  Lips caressing, tongues touching, they stripped away the offending garments, exploring and kissing as though they had never made love before.

  Dory’s hands were hot and demanding, covering his flesh with eager deliberation. “Easy, love,” Griff whispered in her ear. “We’ve got the rest of the night and I intend to spend every minute of it making love to you.” His lips were pressed against her throat, his voice sending little tremors through her body. “Easy, love, easy.”

  In a graceful, swift movement, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed, holding her against him while he threw back the spread and laid her gently down on the smooth sheets.

  He stood beside her for a long moment, drinking in the long, sweeping lines of her body, traveling up the length of her slim thighs to the perfection of her small but sweetly molded breasts. The fire in his loins rose to his head, making him feel heady, knowing a deep, aching longing for her. She held out her arms to him, and with a sound that was close to a groan, he lay down beside her, entwining himself around her, drawing her close against him.

  Dory’s head was swimming with anticipation. Her body was ready for him, arching, needing, eager for his touch and for his ultimate possession of her. But he would not take her quickly, she knew; his would be a slow, artful exploration, giving, taking, claiming for his own. And when she would feel herself splitting into fragments, incomplete without him deep inside her, only then would he take her, filling her world and joining her to himself.

  Their mouths touched, teasing little tastes of his tongue, while he he
ld her so tightly that each breath was a labor. He anchored her body to his while her senses took flight, soaring high overhead until her thinking became disjointed, and her world was focused only on those places that were covered by his hands, by his lips.

  Taking his dark head in her hands, she cradled his face, kissing his mouth, his chin, the creases between his brows. His mustache tickled and aroused, adding further sensation to the contact between their mouths, making his lips seem softer and warmer in contrast.

  “Love me, Griff, love me,” she implored, her voice deep, throaty, almost a primal cry of desire. The sound in the silent room made his passions flare. He covered her with his body, holding her fast with his muscular thighs, while he skillfully caressed her heated flesh. She drew his head down to her breasts, offering them. His lips closed over one pouting crest and then the other, nibbling, teasing, drawing tight, loving circles with his tongue. His excursions traveled downward to the flatness of her belly and the soft, darker recesses between her legs.

  Dory felt herself arch instinctively against his mouth, her head rolling back and forth on the pillow as though to deny the exquisite demand of her sensuality. Her fingers curled in his thick, dark hair, her body moved of its own volition against the caress he excited against her. Release, when it came, was the ebbing of the flood tide, seeping from her limbs and the sudden exhaling of her breath. She was floating, drifting on a cloud, the whole of her world consisting of his lips and her flesh and the contact between them.

  Still, his movements were slow, deliberate and unhurried, although there was a roaring in his ears that was echoed in the pulses of his loins. His hands grasped her hips, lifting her, drawing her against him, filling her with his bigness, knowing his own needs now and demanding they be met. His breathing was ragged, his chest heaving as though he had run a mile. Lips met, lingered, tasted and met again. He moved within her imprisoning flesh, insistently, rhythmically, bringing her with him to another plateau so different from the first yet just as exciting. He rocked against her, feeling the resistance she offered, knowing that as she tightened around him as though to expel him from her, she was coming ever nearer to that climaxing sunburst where he would find his own consolation.

  Panting, Griff’s body covered hers, calming her shudders and comforting her until their spasms passed. It was with reluctance that he withdrew from her and silently pulled the covers over them, taking her in his arms to cradle her lovingly. Contentedly, Dory rested against him, sweeping her hand down the length of his body and finding him moist from her own wetness. Curled together in a dream of their own, they murmured love words until at last they slept.

  Chapter Three

  The days moved swiftly but not swiftly enough to suit Dory. She concentrated on one thought: get to Virginia as soon as possible and be with Griff. She went through the motions at Soiree, but at the end of the day she wasn’t certain she had accomplished anything. Her thoughts were on furniture, dishes, and lamps. Green plants and drapery fabrics were a close second. Her doctorate was almost an afterthought.

  She packed with feverish intensity in the early hours of every morning. Boxes of books and her personal things would go with her in Griff’s SUV when she bade her final adieu to the Big Apple. Subletting the apartment had been no problem, Katy’s cousin’s boyfriend’s sister was delighted to take it off her hands at a hundred dollars more a month than she was paying. An extra hundred to decorate with, Dory chortled to herself, and then later, that hundred dollars every month would buy what she wanted. Shoes, new blouse, lacy underthings. Whatever.

  Never more than a cursory cook, she now mentally planned nourishing menus that she would serve on just the right dishes with just the right place mats and real napkins that had to be ironed. She would make a centerpiece and an exquisite dessert. She would need cookbooks. Katy could take care of that for her with a phone call to her friends in the publishing houses. Dory could imagine herself poring over cookbooks in front of the fireplace while Griff studied his veterinary journals. Togetherness. Wonderful. Griff would sigh with delight and pat his stomach and look at her the way he looked at Lily Dayton. Homemaking would have its own brand of rewards. Candlelight. Dinner would always be by candlelight. She would make sure the atmosphere stayed romantic so Griff would have no cause to regret his decision to rent the town house. In the spring she would plant some pansies and tulips. Griff loved flowers and bright colors. Pots and pots of flowers. Maybe a few geraniums. Spring? Spring would be March. April. Six months away. Her stomach churned as she thought of the deadline she had promised Lizzie. She could play house for six months and get it out of her system, as Lizzie put it. Or she could settle in, marry Griff, and finish her doctorate. Or she could come back to Soiree and take on David Harlow and all the problems that would go with the job. Six months was a long way off. For now she couldn’t think past Thanksgiving and Christmas. She would make it memorable for both Griff and herself. It would be their first Christmas. God, how she could decorate that place for the holidays. Just last year Soiree had done an in-depth interview on a wealthy woman who handmade Christmas decorations for the Fifth Avenue crowd. They had been exquisite and the prices had been mind-bending. Somewhere in the bowels of the Soiree building were cartons of those decorations that she herself had packed up to be stored. She vaguely recalled the wealthy woman saying she could have them for the wonderful job she had done on the layout. Feeling guilty because all the office girls wanted them, she had packed them up and then forgotten about them. Now, she would add them to the boxes to be transported to Virginia in the SUV.

  Dory fixed herself a cup of coffee and walked to the window. She certainly hoped she would sleep better once she was in Virginia. The past days, with only three or four hours of broken sleep, were doing nothing for her already impatient disposition. She wanted to be gone, to be with Griff in their new home. New home. How wonderful it sounded. How happy. A nice, warm, snug, safe place of their own. Decorated by her for Griff with loving hands. Griff couldn’t help but approve. They were going to be so-o-o-o happy.

  The heavy drapes swished open. To the east the sky began to grow light. A streak of orange-gold appeared on the horizon, dividing the space into two endless halves of smog and pollution.

  The phone shrilled just as Dory finished making a second cup of coffee. She balanced the cup in one hand and cradled the receiver next to her ear. The voice on the other end of the phone delighted her. A wide grin stretched across her face as she carefully set the cup on the counter. “Pix! Talk about timing. I was just thinking about you. How are you?”

  “Do you want the truth or an outrageous lie?”

  “I’ll take the truth. How’s things in the Dakota where all the fancy people live?”

  “B-o-r-i-n-g. But, yesterday I saw Yoo Hoo in the elevator. You know the one who wears the sunglasses and was married to that rock singer. Anyway, she took off her glasses when she saw me.”

  “You probably dazzled her with one of your costumes. What were you wearing and how many diamonds did you have on? By the way, where are you?”

  “In the coffee shop downstairs. I thought I’d stop by to see you for a few minutes. Do you have the time?”

  “Pix, for you I’ll make time. Have you had breakfast?”

  “Breakfast! Good God, Dory, if I ate breakfast it would kill me. I feel in the mood for Irish coffee and a bagel. Can you swing it?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll have it ready when you get here.”

  Dory opened the door at the sound of the buzzer. She stood back to view her aging aunt. For some reason she was always reminded of a rainbow when she saw Pixie. They hugged each other and giggled like two schoolgirls. “God, I’m exhausted,” Pixie said, slumping down on the sofa. “It’s a jungle out there in the morning.”

  “Tell me about it. I have to hack my way through it every day. What are you doing up so early? I thought you slept till three.”

  Pixie snorted as she gulped at her Irish coffee. “If you would just figure out a way
to get your mother off my back so I can get on mine I could sleep till three. Ten days of celibacy is all I can handle.”

  Dory laughed. “Mom’s at it again, huh?”

  “I swear that woman has a private detective trailing me. I think I shook him this morning, though. She said I was becoming an embarrassment to her and she wasn’t going to tolerate it anymore. Can you believe that?” Pixie snorted again as she straightened her silvery wig of cascading curls. “I think you put too much coffee in this cup. This is the way your mother serves it to the minister when he stops by to console her over my antics as she calls them. How do you stand her? I know she’s my sister and your mother but she’s missing out on all that life has to offer. She must spend at least twenty-one hours of every day worrying about what I’m going to do next.”

  “Well, what are you going to do?” Dory giggled.

  “I already did it,” Pixie said, filling her coffee cup a third time. “I put myself in the hands of the best plastic surgeon in the country and told him not to stint. You’re looking at the results.”

  Dory frowned. “What did you have done?” She hated asking the question but she had to know. A sucker was born every minute. Not Pixie. Pixie wouldn’t . . . or would she?

  “I knew you were going to ask that. Not a whole hell of a lot. I got a boob job and a derriere lift. Doctor Torian, who by the way is a handsome devil, and a class act, said he was a skilled surgeon and not a miracle worker. My fanny is now featuring a silicone implant. It’s so marvelous, I can’t tell you. I can bounce like a rubber ball. I am disappointed in my boobs, though. I would have had a complete overhaul but the doctor said there was only so much he could do. So, I settled for this. But,” she said, wagging a bony finger at Dory, “I know that when I walk away from someone I juggle. I mean jiggle. It was worth it,” she grinned as she slurped the last of her coffee. “You used instant coffee, didn’t you?”