Not exactly the break she had in mind, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Hello?”
“I didn’t wake you, did I?”
“Of course not. What’s wrong, Elliot?” The flatness of his voice, an about-face from the night before, was a dead giveaway.
“Celebration’s over. Did I say that this developer would be tough to work with? Make that impossible. We spent the whole day arguing with him about the architect’s specs. They’re absurd. Half of the stuff he’s got listed can’t be bought.”
“Why did the architect list them?”
“Because he’s an arrogant S.O.B. who did his training in Milan. Well, hell, we can’t go to Milan for materials. Not if we want to make any profit on this thing.”
“The developer must know that.”
“Sure he knows it. But he doesn’t give a damn about our profit. He’s out for himself.”
“Oh, Elliot, there must be some way to make him understand,” she said. Grabbing a nearby dish towel, she began to dust the peninsula on which the phone sat. When Elliot said nothing, she remarked, “At least you have partners to argue on your side. It’s not your responsibility alone.”
“That’s the problem,” Elliot said in a quiet voice.
“What is?”
“I was the one who came up with the bid on these particular specs.”
“You bid on the wrong materials?” She couldn’t believe he’d do something so stupid. Then again, he’d been desperate to land the job.
“I bid on materials that I felt were of equivalent quality. The developer knew what I’d priced, but now he’s decided that he wants the originals.”
“Can you charge him for the difference?”
“Not with the contract already signed.”
“So what will you do?”
“Either absorb the difference or fight.”
Caroline’s hand stilled on the cloth. She didn’t feel like dusting. It was too hot. She sighed. “I guess you have a decision to make, then.”
“I’m damned either way. On top of that, we found out today that we’ll have to do a whole lot of blasting if we want to put in an underground parking lot.”
“You didn’t know that before?” she asked. By the time he’d launched into a long story about topographical charts, she was seeking diversions. While she’d never found Elliot’s trials and tribulations fascinating, they’d been interesting enough. It was his petulant tone that put her off now. That and the heat.
She ought to get a small air conditioner, she decided. But where to put it? She couldn’t set it in one of the French windows; that would ruin their look, not to mention the luxury of being able to open both wide. The only other window was in the bathroom, so a window unit was out. She could have one installed in the wall, but that would take major construction, which she doubted her landlords would condone.
Hell, she didn’t want an air conditioner. She wanted a magic carpet.
“It’ll probably be awful,” Elliot was saying. “So give me something to look forward to. I can pick you up at work and we’ll do something wild.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
“But we have plans for Saturday.”
“We can do something tomorrow, too.”
Shifting the phone to the other ear, she rubbed her stiff shoulder and leaned back against the counter. “I can’t, Elliot. I’m so far behind with paperwork that I’ll be late at the office.”
“Name a time and I’ll come.”
“If I don’t get my work done, I’ll have to spend part of Saturday at it, and I’ve already got a list a mile long of things to do for Saturday.”
“I need you, Caroline.”
It was a cheap shot. He was playing on her softness, and actually, she couldn’t blame him. It usually worked. But not tonight. She was tired of being a doormat. “Elliot, I can’t. Really. Saturday night has your name on it in big red letters.”
“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were two-timing me.”
“With work?” she asked. Her eye crossed the courtyard.
“With a man. Are you seeing someone else?”
Tall-Dark-and-Handsome moved through her line of vision. She couldn’t see what he was doing, because he was fast moving out of sight, but a hunter-green towel was draped around his neck. He must have been wiping off sweat.
She gave a helpless little moan. At its sound, she bit her lip, then realized that it wasn’t so bad; the moan could be taken two ways. “I don’t have time to see two men,” she answered, realizing only after the fact that her words could be taken two ways, too.
Elliot took both moan and words to his benefit. “Good. I’m feeling possessive.”
She was careful to stifle the moan this time. “When should I expect you Saturday?”
“I’ll give you a call during the day.”
“Better tell me now,” she warned in as teasing a tone as she could muster. “I’ll be running all day, and I don’t want you to have to talk to the machine.”
“Okay. How does six-thirty sound?”
“Fine, Elliot. See you then.”
She hung up the phone and slowly turned to face the window. As slowly, she began to walk, stopping only when her thighs touched the window seat. Lowering herself to her customary position against the jamb, she wrapped her arms around her legs and looked over the cars and trees to the opposite loft.
From what she could see, it was set up almost identically to hers. The living area was in the foreground. Beyond it and taking up most of the wall to the left of the front door was the kitchen. To the right of the door was the sleeping area.
The similarities to her own place ended there. His furniture was of a soft brown leather and distinctly masculine, while hers was upholstered in a bright floral print that favored pale greens and pinks. His kitchen table was square and lacquered in a dark shade of tan with chairs of leather and chrome, while her table was round and its chairs of matching light birch. And while her bed was a double and wore a quilt to match her sofa, his was king-sized and covered with … covered with … a jumble of sheets.
She smiled. He was a slob. His bed wasn’t the only thing in a state of disarray. Mail littered the peninsula by the door. Magazines and newspapers were strewn on the coffee table in the living area. A suit jacket, replete with tie, had been left draped over the leather side chair. And she swore she could see the very tip of a pile of dishes in the sink.
If he thought she was going to clean up after him, he had another think coming. Still, there was something appealing about his mess. It suggested that he was laid-back, and she liked that. Ben had been a compulsive cleaner, and the compulsiveness had carried over into other aspects of his life. He’d been ultraorganized, both at work and at home, and punctual to the extreme of sitting in his car until the stroke of eight, if that was the time they were to meet another couple for dinner.
Tall-Dark-and-Handsome wasn’t hung up that way. He didn’t stand on ceremony. He was spontaneous and took enjoyment from the sheer act of living. She decided that his apartment looked more lived-in than messy and she liked that, too.
Just then, the object of her speculation came into view. She clutched her knees tighter against the impulse to hide from sight, for she couldn’t do that. It was too late. He’d come to lean against the window and was looking straight at her.
Her toes curled. She began to tingle. A knot of excitement formed in her chest and worked its way to her throat, making each breath an effort.
Gone were the tank top and running shorts. The towel that had earlier been draped around his neck now swathed his hips. He’d come from the shower. She didn’t ask herself how she knew that the moisture on his skin wasn’t sweat. She couldn’t possibly tell the difference from where she sat. But she knew.
His body shone. For a fleeting second she imagined that it was wreathed by a halo, but she caught herself on that particular bit of fantasy. He wasn’t a saint. Lord, she didn’t want
a saint. She wanted a man, just a man, sweet idiosyncrasies and all.
He didn’t nod his head or lift a hand. There was no movement except the slow, barely perceptible rise and fall of his chest.
Sweat trickled down her cheek to her jaw. Her skin grew warmer, this time from within. She had the split-second vision of her body sparking, then disintegrating into a little puff of smoke. Before the vision had passed, she knew she had to move.
Turning her head first, she very carefully pushed herself from the seat. As calmly, she crossed to the kitchen table, neatly returned her papers to the briefcase, then switched off the light. Knowing that he could no longer see, she gave vent to the tiny tremors in her limbs and less steadily pulled back the quilt on her bed and stretched out atop the smooth sheets.
She didn’t look back at the window. Her head was turned away, eyes closed. But the last images to register behind those lids before she fell asleep were of a cool cascade of water, a bar of Irish Spring and a hunter-green towel lying discarded on the floor.
3
Brendan Carr was bewitched. That was the only conclusion he could reach when at the oddest moments of the day his thoughts turned to Sweet-and-Sexy. He’d come to think of her as that. The name fit. There was a sweetness to her—in the lyrical way she moved her hands, the girlish way she gathered her hair into a ponytail, the graceful way she roamed her apartment. He might have called her innocent, for he imagined he saw that, too, but sexiness overrode it.
Was she ever sexy! The thin bits of cloth she wore in the heat hid everything essential while hiding nothing at all. She was slender without being skinny. He knew that her breasts were small but well rounded, that her waist was narrow, that her hips flared just enough to flaunt her femininity. She didn’t flaunt it knowingly; he was convinced of that. She couldn’t see the way the dim backlight of her loft passed through material to outline her curves. He sensed that she’d be embarrassed if she knew, or maybe that was what he wanted to believe. He wanted to believe many things. Hell, what man wouldn’t, when a woman turned him on the way she did?
He wanted to believe, first off, that she was single. She lived alone, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t separated from a husband or engaged to another man or biding her time until the object of her true love returned from a faraway place. He’d seen a man in her apartment several times, and though she’d kissed him goodbye when he’d left, she’d deliberately freed herself from his embrace before it had escalated. They’d certainly never made it to the bed.
With the march of those words through his mind, he grimaced. He wasn’t really a Peeping Tom. But the French windows were huge in relation to the loft, and he was only human. At night, with the lights on, little was hidden. She hadn’t covered the windows with drapes, apparently seeing the travesty of that, a woman of his own mind.
Actually, he’d been acutely aware of that loft since he’d moved into his own two years before. Its previous tenants had been a pair of coeds who had partied nonstop. Even in the dead of winter—though Washington’s winters were far from frigid—they’d had no compunction about throwing the windows open wide to share their raucous gatherings with the world. The noise had been horrendous. He hadn’t been the only tenant annoyed, but he’d been one of the few who’d dared speak up. Toward the end of their stay, the two girls had taken to tossing derogatory cracks across the courtyard at him. He’d been relieved when they’d moved out.
That had been six months ago. Naturally, he’d been curious about the new tenant. He’d assumed that the realty firm—the same one that owned the entire block of town houses—had been more careful this time, particularly since they’d been left with a monumental cleaning and painting job. The winter months had been quiet and he’d been busy, but when the first of the good weather had rolled around, he’d cast an occasional curious glance across the way.
He’d never forget the night he’d first seen her. He’d been scanning the front page of the Journal when the sudden illumination of her apartment had caught his eye. Unable to resist, he’d leaned back against the counter and watched over the top of the paper.
She’d just come in from work. At least, he’d assumed that was it, since she was dressed more smartly and seemed older—strike that, more mature—than a student. She’d shrugged out of her blazer and laid it on the bed, then transferred a frozen dinner from the freezer to the microwave.
He remembered feeling badly that she was eating alone, then wondering why he should. She was attractive. If she’d wanted a dinner partner, she could have found one.
So he’d thrust aside any feelings of guilt and gone back to his paper that night, but he hadn’t been able to keep his eye from wandering on other nights.
You could learn a lot about a woman by spying, he mused. You could learn, for example, that she was dedicated to her work, if the long hours she kept and the homework she did were any indication. And that she was a creature of habit—entering her apartment each night, flipping on the light, placing the mail on the counter, opening the French windows, weather permitting, and turning on the answering machine, in that order. And that she was neat—unless she had a daily maid who cleaned up after her. He couldn’t possibly know about that, since he was at work himself and, anyway, couldn’t see into her loft in broad daylight. But when she came home at night, the place was always tidy. Of course, in contrast to his own place, anything would seem tidy.
Over the weeks, he’d come to think about her more and more. Somehow, returning to his apartment hadn’t seemed quite as lonely when he could look forward to a glimpse of her. For the longest time she’d been unaware of him, and he’d had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, he’d wanted to be able to wave or smile or call across the courtyard to her. On the other hand, he’d been satisfied to set reality aside and simply dream.
He’d done a lot of that. He dreamed that she was his ideal, and though he’d never spent a great deal of time formulating ideals, she embodied them all. She had a career but wasn’t an ardent feminist, never letting her job take precedence over the personal life she wanted. And she did want a personal life, he dreamed. She simply hadn’t found the proper channel.
He dreamed that she was warm and giving, a dream abetted by the amount of time she spent on the phone. He knew that they weren’t frivolous, chatty little calls, because she’d often rub her neck or hang her head. The calls frustrated her, but still she took them. She was a selfless sort.
And a loaner. More than once she’d answered her door to find one of the neighbors in search of something—butter, sugar, eggs. Usually it was Connie. He knew Connie. He bumped into her on and off by their cars in the courtyard and found her to be a little too aggressive for his tastes. And too old. He was thirty-eight. Though Connie was a looker, she was over forty if she was a day. Perhaps it was a hang-up of his, but he wanted a younger woman—not a teenybopper, simply one who hadn’t been around quite so much.
Sweet-and-Sexy looked to be in her late twenties, which was just about right, as far as he was concerned. The nine- or ten-year advantage meant that he was well established at work and could provide for her as he saw fit.
If she was in her late twenties, she’d have completed her education and had time to put down roots in a career. Money wasn’t the issue; it was more one of self-respect. Her self-respect. The stronger an image she had of herself as a person, the more comfortable she’d be with herself as a woman.
And she was comfortable. He could see it in the unself-conscious way she dressed and moved. Actually, sexy was the wrong word, because it implied that she was aware of the effect. Sensual was more apt, but Sweet-and-Sensual didn’t roll as well off his tongue, and sexy was what she made him feel.
Particularly over these past few days of intense heat. When he was home he wore shorts and little else. It wasn’t that his own bareness turned him on, but feeling half-naked as he watched her floating in whisper-thin shifts was phenomenally erotic. As was sweat.
He’d always known he had an
earthy side, but it had never before emerged as strongly. He loved the way she looked when she was hot, when her skin was flushed and silky tendrils of hair clung to her neck. He didn’t want a woman who perspired daintily. He wanted a woman who produced real, honest-to-goodness sweat, like he did. And he wanted a woman who reacted to it like she did—gracefully wiping her brow with the back of her hand, arching her spine in a catlike stretch, tipping her head to place a tall, cooling glass against her neck, slanting against the window in an unconsciously sultry pose.
Then, two nights ago, she’d looked up and seen him. Fantasy and reality had suddenly blurred, which was ridiculous, since he didn’t really know anything more about her than he’d known before. But there had been something about the way she’d looked at him—as though she was a little shocked, a little fascinated, more than a little unsure of what to do about either—that focused things a bit more.
Was it time to act? He’d asked himself that question dozens of times in the past two days. He wanted to make that first verbal contact, but somehow that would bring reality even closer, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready. His hesitance seemed silly, when he thought about it, because he’d never been diffident or shy. He attributed it to the fantasy, which was so lovely that he didn’t want it to end.
Of course, if reality were to prove even better, he’d curse himself for the waste of time. She was so pretty, so sensual, so gentle looking. He could imagine himself relaxing with her, and he badly needed to relax. He could imagine the soft conversations they’d have and those times when they wouldn’t even have to talk, feeling perfectly comfortable sharing the silence.
He could also imagine her in bed. Not just in bed. He’d caught glimpses of her there moments before she’d turned off her light. It was enchanting the way she’d stretched out, curved around, found a pleasant spot beneath the sheet. But that wasn’t what he’d had in mind. He could imagine her in bed with him, offering the deepest softness and the sweetest fire.
Warm Hearts Page 5
