“That’s nothing,” said Ray, bending down a corner of a page to peer at them. “My mother came to live with us back in 1970. She and my poor wife argued so much, the police were at my house three times the first week because the neighbors complained.”
Mark imagined his mother and Ellie in the same house. Not in a million years. He pushed his plate away and grabbed a glass of water. He’d never experienced heartburn before, but it didn’t take a medical degree to perform a quick diagnosis. His previous notion of entering a relationship with Ellie ended along with his appetite.
10
ELLIE WAVED at the messy painters as she ducked through the entryway of the clinic. She was almost sorry she wouldn’t be around to see the finished product.
Freda stood behind the receptionist’s counter when Ellie walked in. “Well, if it isn’t the woman with the experienced toes.” The woman’s eyes were actually twinkling. She led Ellie back to a tiny room and asked, “So, what’s the latest?”
“Nothing kinky this week,” Ellie informed her as she took a seat and handed her the journal. “I consider whipped cream to be pretty standard stuff.”
“Oh?”
“We were together Friday night, then he left town Saturday.”
“Sounds like he came around.”
Ellie grinned sheepishly. “Around and around and upside down.”
Showing uncharacteristic concern, Freda asked, “Have you heard from him?”
Ellie shook her head sadly. “It’s the pheromones, isn’t it? He’s not near me to be affected by them, so he’s not interested.”
“Is that what you think?” Freda asked, her pen poised.
Ellie nodded.
“Could be,” Freda admitted, making notes. “But haven’t you heard the saying ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder’?”
“I thought it was ‘Absence make the heart wonder.’ Or is it ‘wander’?”
“You don’t have much confidence in your relationship, do you?”
Ellie’s laugh was short and dry. “Relationship? What Mark and I have is a physical attraction brought about by these…these fake love-inducers.” She pointed to the bottle of pills sitting in front of Freda. “It’s not fair—they mess with a person’s mind—they make you think something’s there that really isn’t.” She blinked away tears and tried to smile at Freda. “Tennyson was wrong—it’s better not to have loved at all than to have loved and lost.”
“You haven’t lost him yet,” Freda said.
“Yeah,” Ellie said miserably, gesturing to her final supply. “This should delay the inevitable by about one week.”
“Have you considered the possibility you might feel differently about him once you quit taking the pills?”
Elation zigged, then zagged through Ellie’s heart. She lifted her chin and flashed a genuine smile in Freda’s direction. “You’re right!” A burden the size of Mark’s cellular phone bill rolled off her back. Since it was a chemically induced fluke she’d fallen for the very type of man she’d sworn to avoid, this attraction would probably disappear as quickly as it had surfaced.
“Anyway,” Freda said, “it’ll be interesting to see what happens when he returns.” She handed Ellie the final week’s supply of pheromones.
Ellie fingered the bottle, the pills suddenly weighing heavily in her palm. The honeymoon was almost over, and she was happy to see the end in sight.
Wasn’t she?
“WHERE HAVE YOU been keeping yourself?” Manny asked, dumping his bags of groceries on the counter. “As if I didn’t know,” he added.
Ellie angled her head at him across the room. She’d set up an easel in a corner of the breakfast nook by the window. After wiping a brush on a turpentine-soaked rag, she stretched her cramped fingers. Sometimes, a picture practically painted itself. This was one of those times when once she started painting, she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She checked her watch. Three hours, nonstop.
Manny walked over to peek at the painting and gasped, his hand to his chest. “My, my.” Mark Blackwell lay slumbering on the canvas, his sleek and muscled nude body accented, not covered, by the twisted sheets. “Now I know where the phrase too big for his britches originated.”
“Manny,” Ellie warned, “if you let on you’ve seen this painting, I swear I’ll burn your gowns.”
With his hand. Manny made a zipping motion across his mouth, then turned back to the painting. “It’s divine, El,” he said with sincerity in his voice.
“One of my best,” she agreed. “A shame no one will ever see it.”
“Then why on earth did you paint it?”
“It’s a surprise gift to Mark for taking care of Esmerelda.”
Manny looked incredulous. “He doesn’t know about it?”
“Nope.”
“Well, that explains a few things. I thought it was rather loose of Mr. A. Retentive. How’s the other painting going?”
“Almost finished. Mark’s in Chicago.”
“When did he leave?”
“Saturday morning.”
“This is Tuesday. You’ve been at his house three entire days by yourself?”
“Esmerelda was there,” Ellie said defensively.
“What have you been doing?”
“Working on the other portrait, weeding his flowers—”
“Sleeping in his bed. Did you rearrange the furniture, too, Goldilocks?”
“No! Although the couch in his den would look better under the window.”
“You’re getting too comfortable at this house,” Manny warned. “What’s going on with the two of you?”
“That’s a very good question.”
“And?”
“And I intend to pursue an answer once he returns from his trip.”
“Which will be?”
“Soon, I think.”
By Friday, when she still hadn’t heard from Mark, Ellie was decidedly depressed. Pride kept her from calling his office to see when they expected him to return. She’d put the final touches on the business portrait still drying at his home. The finished nude, drying on an easel in her bedroom, no longer seemed like such a grand idea.
Mark Blackwell was firmly entrenched in his career, and had made it crystal clear this week he didn’t care enough about her to spare five minutes of his busy schedule to call. For all she knew, he could be flitting around the Windy City with a busty woman on each arm. In fact, the more she dwelled on it, the more convinced she became he was doing just that. Misery wallowed in her stomach.
Saturday afternoon, Ellie returned home with new sketches for two more Atlanta landmark paintings she intended to add to her portfolio. A quick glance at her answering machine told her there was one message. Her heart lifted. Mark? She rushed over to the machine and pushed the play button.
“Ellie, this is Monica. I wanted to let you know in case Mark hasn’t called that he’ll be back Wednesday morning.” So, she’d been relegated to receiving messages through his secretary, and probably only because Monica had taken it upon herself to forward the information. She knew the routine—some weeks her mother had talked to her husband’s secretary more than she’d spoken to her own husband.
Ellie’s heart crumbled in disappointment. She deserved more than a philandering businessman who slept with his briefcase. More than a man who would fly off for weeks at a time and never check in. She refused to expose herself to it, she refused to expose her children to it. Ellie made a painful decision. If Mark Blackwell ever came home, she wouldn’t be seeing him anymore. Which was just as well, she noted. The end of the study loomed in plain sight.
She went to the Dunwoody house that afternoon to check on Esmerelda, and decided from the looks of her cat’s bulging tummy, she’d better start spending the nights again, at least until Mark came home. To soothe her guilty pangs, Ellie slept in a guest room and bought groceries, then puttered around the yard, weeding, watering, trimming, even transplanting. She found a tiny vacant mulch bed which would have made a perfect he
rb garden, but she swept the thought aside. Better to concentrate on reality, such as finding a job.
So the next morning, she and Esmerelda pored over Mark’s Sunday-paper classified ads. She would receive the last check from the study on Tuesday when she turned in her final journal, which was practically blank this week, except for the occasional street admirer. She’d be able to collect the largest and final installment on Mark’s portrait from the law firm in a couple of weeks. But she needed to look for something steady and, preferably, with insurance.
Ellie sighed, circling possibilities, tears filling her eyes when she remembered the last time she’d done this. It had been the day Mark Blackwell had bumbled his way into her life. Only this time, tears, not displaced soda, wet the paper. Ellie wished she’d never heard of pheromones, because if not for those darned pills, she wouldn’t have lost her heart to Mark. She put her head down and cried in earnest. Esmerelda licked Ellie’s hand.
IF ELLIE HAD ANY DOUBTS about whether she wore her heart on her sleeve, Freda put them to rest Tuesday morning.
“I take it he’s still in Chicago?”
Ellie nodded forlornly.
“And you haven’t heard from him?”
She shook her head, just as forlornly.
“When is he due back?”
“His secretary left me a message he’ll be back tomorrow.”
“And you’ll be taking your last two pills this evening, right?”
Ellie nodded again.
Freda sighed. “Don’t fret about it—you’ll just make yourself sick.” She smiled and patted Ellie’s hand. “Good luck.” “WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?” Mark grumbled to Patrick. They’d been sitting on a runway at O’Hare for over forty minutes waiting for their plane to take off.
Patrick looked up from his magazine. “Relax, man, this is typical.”
“You think they could at least serve us a beer while we wait.”
Patrick raised an eyebrow. “Are you cranky for a particular reason or can I look forward to this every time we fly together?”
Mark frowned. “Sorry.”
His partner laughed. “Hey, I miss Lucy, too. You’ll be home before you know it. And reunion sex is the best, don’t you think? It’s the only time I can get near Lucy anymore.” He went back to his reading, leaving Mark to brood.
He’d decided earlier in the week he wouldn’t be seeing Ellie anymore. That is, he wouldn’t be dating her anymore. She’d still be at his house occasionally during the next few weeks until that darn cat dropped her kittens and weaned them. Come to think of it, he and Ellie hadn’t really dated much, when he subtracted the dates he’d bartered for and the disastrous double date with Ray and Manny.
Okay, so he wouldn’t be sleeping with her anymore. That thought sent a pang of regret through his midsection, but he remained determined. He was too young to settle down and when he did, it would be to someone better suited for him. He hadn’t figured out the hold she seemed to have over him, but if staying away from Ellie and her powerful sex appeal held the answer, he’d do it. He’d made sacrifices before. He’d be happier in the long run. So how to break the news to her? The way men had been delivering bad news for decades. In the gentlest, safest way possible.
By telephone.
ELLIE’S HEART LEAPED involuntarily at the sound of the ringing phone. Manny’s eyes shot up in question as he reached for the handset. She motioned for him to answer it.
“Hello? Yes, she is. May I ask who’s calling? Well, Mark, how nice of you to call. We thought you’d died. Hold on, please.”
Ellie rolled her eyes.
Manny covered the mouthpiece and said unnecessarily, “It’s him.”
After taking several deep breaths to calm herself, Ellie picked up the handset and said, “Hello?”
“Hi, it’s Mark.”
She couldn’t read anything into the tone of his voice. But he didn’t sound especially glad to be talking to her. “Oh, hi. Are you home?”
“Yeah.”
“How was your trip?” She tried to shoo Manny from the room with her hand, but he smiled and shook his head, plopping down on the couch within hearing distance.
“I had a busy week,” Mark said distractedly. “And long. It’ll be nice to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
The silence hung heavy after his loaded offhand comment.
Ellie cleared her throat. “Well, hopefully Esmerelda won’t bother you.”
“I see she still hasn’t had her kittens.”
“No, but she should any day. I hope you don’t mind—I stayed over there the last few nights in case she needed me.”
“So you’re the one who replenished my beer.”
“Yeah, I figured it was the least I could do. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate your letting her stay.” She was rambling, she knew, but she wasn’t sure where they stood anymore.
“A deal’s a deal,” he said simply. “The portrait looks finished.” He seemed to be grasping at conversational straws, too.
“It is. As soon as the paint is dry enough, I’ll bring it home to frame.”
“Would it sound conceited if I said it looked great?”
“A little, but I know what you mean. Thanks.”
“Sure.” He cleared his throat. “Look, Ellie, I’ve been thinking now would be a good time to let everyone at work know our engagement is, well…off.”
Ellie bit her bottom lip to stern her tears. Although she’d been entertaining the same thoughts, it just sounded so final coming from his mouth. Manny leaned forward on the couch, looking ready to pounce on the phone. She took a deep, steadying breath. “Uh, sure, my thoughts exactly. I’m sure no one will be surprised. We’re not really each other’s type, you know.”
“Right.” He sounded relieved. “But, hey, don’t let that keep you away. I know you’ll be wanting to check on Esmerelda, so hang on to that key, okay?”
“Okay,” she said, forcing brightness into her voice.
“I’ll see you soon, then?”
“Soon,” she promised, and hung up slowly. When she turned, Manny was already by her side. He pulled her into his arms, rocking her and shushing her tears.
AFTER UNPACKING and showering, Mark went to the office for a few hours, but couldn’t seem to concentrate. I’m tired, he rationalized. He toyed with the idea of calling Valerie, but an early evening and a long night’s rest sounded more appealing. He carefully kept at bay the words and emotions of this morning’s stilted phone conversation with Ellie. In a few weeks, he’d forget about her. He’d probably run into her one day with a rumpled poet on her arm. He frowned, then pushed all thoughts of Ellie Sutherland from his mind.
After pulling into the garage, Mark walked back down his short driveway to check the mailbox. While idly flipping through bills and junk mail, he scrutinized his landscaping. Something seemed different, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. Not one thing, but maybe everything. He stopped. The gardens were neater, perhaps. Which was odd, since the landscaping company wasn’t scheduled to come out for another month. He examined the bushes and flowers more closely. Completely weed free. And showing evidence of recent pruning. Frowning, he reentered the garage, then noticed his gardening gloves were hung in a different spot. As were some of his tools. Ellie? He shook his head, a small smile curving his lips.
All was quiet when he entered the house. For a split second, he craved Lynyrd Skynyrd, but settled on a shot of bourbon. After he poured the drink, he stopped to study the expensive crystal decanter, heavy and cool in his hands. Very elegant, like all his possessions. Given the chance, how would Ellie spend his money? Leopard-skin-upholstered furniture? Baubles for the cat?
Trudging upstairs to change, Mark registered the fact that Esmerelda hadn’t made her normal snooty appearance. Probably lying in wait somewhere to pounce on him, he decided. He walked into his bedroom, flipping on the light. He reached for the remote and tuned in a sports channel, then stripped off his clothes as he walked through the bathroom and into his
walk-in closet to retrieve a pair of sweats. A slow, low growl sounded beneath the spot his long coats were hanging.
“Out of here, Esmerelda,” Mark said sternly, moving the coats aside to shoo her away. A pungent, sweet odor reached his nostrils an instant before his first sneeze. Never fond of seeing blood, Mark noted it seemed especially graphic against the light camel of his best cashmere coat. “Nope, can’t fault your good taste,” he muttered, allowing the coats to fall gently back into place as he backed out of the closet, and trotted to the phone.
Manny answered it on the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Is Ellie there?”
“She’s not feeling very well. Who’s this?”
Mark sighed in frustration. “It’s Mark. I need to talk to Ellie about her cat. There’s blood everywhere.”
“SHE’LL BE FINE, you’ll see,” Manny assured her. He’d insisted on accompanying Ellie because she felt so ill.
The rhythm of the train threatened to lull Ellie’s mind to numbness. She knew she looked like hell. Passengers averted their eyes. Between the crying jags and a head cold she’d succumbed to this evening, she felt as if she’d been trampled. Her eyes were red and puffy, her nose the size of W. C. Fields’s. She sneezed savagely into a large crumpled handkerchief.
“Your immunity is down,” Manny chided. “All that worrying over a straight man, for heaven’s sake.”
Ellie felt too miserable to respond. Her chest ached. And to cap off this rotten day, Mark would see her at her absolute worst. Then he’d be kicking his heels he’d broken it off.
“You shouldn’t have come,” Manny mumbled.
“Esmerelda needs me,” she managed to get out between parched lips. It hurt to breathe.
“You need you. That cat can take care of herself.”
“Manny—”
“Okay, okay, I’ll hush.”
Mark stood waiting for her when they stepped off the train. She tried to calm the beating of her heart, but it raced at the sight of him. A look of concern came over him when she drew nearer.
Irresistible? Page 15
