All About Eve

by Liliana Hart

  Eve didn’t respond, but fell victim to the caress of his voice as he put something cold on the scrapes at her knee.

  Jake was tired of being patient, and it was a strain to not let his irritation show at being labeled lecher for life. Did she not believe in change or redemption for past mistakes? For someone as smart as she was, she couldn’t see past the end of her nose when it came to her own love life. Before either one of them could say anything they were likely to regret, he leaned down and kissed her knee gently. Her indrawn breath was enough to tell him that she was already in way over her head. He just had to do everything in his power to make her realize it.

  “I’ve got to get back to work,” he said. “Some eccentric doctor bought this dilapidated house of ill repute and wants a miracle. I figure I’d better give her what she wants since her sanity seems to be a bit fragile.”

  Jake left her sitting in his trailer, a look of utter surprise and something else on her face. He wanted to believe it was longing. Things were falling into place nicely.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “You’ve already had callers on hold for more than an hour tonight, and you haven’t even gone on the air yet,” Lucy said, her ever present clipboard in her hands and five pencils stuck every which way in her hair.

  “I’ve pulled two interns to help me screen the calls. You have a couple of repeats we’ll put through so you can hear their progress. Oh, and don’t drink the coffee. Miles Webber drank two cups and had to be rushed to the hospital with chronic nausea. I swear the man lost twenty pounds in ten minutes. I’m thinking about taking some home with me in case I want to start a new diet.”

  Eve let her friend’s words wash over her, used to the woman’s constant rambling, and looked over her notes for the show. She would pick tonight to talk about the key ingredients to a successful relationship.

  She chose her topics for every show weeks in advance so advertising would know how to market, and also so she could do a few promos for the upcoming week. She would pay any amount of money for someone to tear her notes to shreds and let her talk about something more mundane—like the importance of couples therapy or masturbation techniques.

  “Well, let’s get started,” Eve said, already thinking of Jake, not that he’d ever really left her thoughts.

  She’d snuck out of the house when she’d left for the station, not sure she could be so close to him again without going up in flames. The heart was a damned nuisance, and when her logical brain got involved it became an even bigger one.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Lucy asked, concerned. “You seem a little down.”

  “I’m fine. Just a little tired”

  “I’ve never seen you tired. You’re the Energizer Bunny. There’s something else going on and don’t think I won’t figure it out. I’ve got the nose of a bloodhound.”

  “Maybe I should say I’m not ready to talk about it instead.”

  “That, I’ll accept. But I’ll ask again,” Lucy said, leaving the booth for her own desk on the other side of the glass enclosure.

  “I’d expect nothing less,” Eve muttered, adjusting her headset and listening to the fade out of the upbeat music that always introduced her show. She took her cue from Lucy and wiped her sweaty palms on her blue jeans.

  “Welcome to the show. This is Dr. Eve Lovegood, and tonight’s topic is something that affects every single one of us whether we want it to or not. No matter what stance we take on the subject, no matter what our race or sexual orientation—it affects us all. Relationships. What is the key ingredient to keep your relationship from falling apart? Is it one specific thing? Is love enough, or are there several ingredients that must be measured and combined before you have a healthy, lasting, loving relationship? And most importantly, where does trust fit into the mix? We’ll talk about the answers to those questions tonight, and I welcome you to call in and share your own experiences or ask questions.”

  Eve settled into the comfort of familiarity. She’d never minded giving lectures, but there was something missing tonight. She read the words from the page, her voice compelling and clear, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was too busy keeping her mind and heart blocked off from listening to her own advice.

  “Infatuated in San Francisco, you’re on the air.”

  “Um, yeah. I have a question about women.”

  “Okay. What about women?” Eve had no idea where her patience had gone, but for some reason it had deserted her tonight.

  “Well, it’s just they’re so confusing. How am I supposed to know what my fiancée wants when she says one thing but means another? And then she gets mad because I don’t know what’s wrong. What should I do?”

  “It sounds to me like the two of you have some communication issues to work out. Do you always tell your fiancée what you’re feeling?”

  “No, but that’s different. Guys aren’t supposed to do stuff like that.”

  “Maybe you’re both building your relationship on misconceptions, and it won’t be long before it crumbles to the ground. Your fiancée obviously believes you should know her well enough to read her mind, and you feel because you’re a man, it gives you the right to keep things bottled up inside. I want you to both make a list of everything that bothers you about each other, no matter how small, and then I want you to make another list of the things you love about each other. Read over each other’s lists and then talk about how the list makes you feel. These are things that need to be said before you say I do. Otherwise, several years and a couple of kids later, the things will come back to blow up in your face.”

  Eve looked at the flashing lights on her control panel and then at the clock. She was going to go insane sitting here for the next two hours. Why hadn’t she had the courage to tell Jake that she was afraid? Afraid of losing her heart to someone who was bound to break it? She couldn’t go through the pain of betrayal again, of being a noose around any man’s neck, as Steve had so often liked to remind her. She’d had enough pain in her pain in her thirty years to last a lifetime. She took a quick sip of water and rolled her head from side to side, trying to loosen the knots that had formed during her realization.

  “Determined in Fort Worth, you’re on the air with Dr. Lovegood.”

  “Hi, Dr. Lovegood. I really enjoy your show. I enjoy everything about you,” he said, giggling. “You see, I’ve got a serious problem. I hope you can help me out.”

  The hair on the back of Eve’s neck tingled at the man’s voice, a sing-song voice that told her some silverware was missing out of his top drawer. “What’s your problem?”

  “There’s this woman that I’m madly in love with. She’s real smart, a doctor. I’m determined to get her to love me back,” he said, his voice hard and then softening once again to a childlike quality. “How should I do that?”

  Eve’s throat was as dry as dust, and she looked at Lucy through the glass. It made her feel marginally better that Lucy’s finger was already on the disconnect button, but she shook her head slowly, telling her to wait to sever the connection. She wanted to hear what the man had to say. She remembered the note that lay wadded at the bottom of her purse.

  She’d had secret admirers before, and it always helped to have as much information as possible before going to the police. And the man didn’t sound dangerous, just fixated.

  “Have you told her how you feel?”

  “No,” he said. A high pitched laugh slithered across her skin. “I’m just at the watching stage. I watch her all the time, even when I’m supposed to be at work. I told you I’m in love with her. Do you think I should try to get her attention?”

  “I think you should go about your day to day routine, including your job, and if she notices you and shows interest, that’s when you should try to get her attention.”

  “Now, I can’t do that, Dr. Lovegood. She’d never notice me. She thinks she’s in love with someone else, but that’s just because she hasn’t gotten to know me yet. I think I’ll just have to make her notice me. By the w
ay, Dr. Lovegood, I really like your house. It has a lot of… character.”

  Eve cut to commercial immediately and put her head between her knees. He knew where she lived. Great. Now she’d have to watch out for a crazy admirer on top of everything else that was happening in her life.

  “We have the number on caller ID. I’ll go ahead and get it to the police and see if we can track him down,” Lucy said, laying a comforting hand on Eve’s shoulder. “It was probably a pay phone though.”

  “It’s all right. I’ll just keep my eyes open. This has happened before. I know the drill.”

  “Are you ready to get back at it?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “Good, because Waiting in Dallas is on the phone, and I wouldn’t mind feeling my heart go pitty-pat before I go home tonight.”

  “He’s on the phone? I can’t talk to him yet. I’m not ready.” Eve felt her lungs burn from holding in a breath and let it out in one loud whoosh.

  “What’s the matter with you? Does this have to do with the thing that’s bothering you but you’re not ready to talk about?”

  Eve shooed her out of the room and did a few deep breathing exercises. She was a professional. A professional who was attracted to a man that was romancing her in front a couple of million people. Piece of cake.

  “Still Waiting in Dallas, welcome back, you’re on the air with Dr. Lovegood.” Her breathing had slowed and was under control, and she wondered where he was calling from.

  “Hiya, Doc.”

  “Hi yourself. What can I do for you tonight?”

  Eve shivered at the sexy laugh that floated across the line, and she blushed when she realized the question could be taken two ways. “Have you come to the realization that it wasn’t really love at first sight after all?”

  “No, it is definitely love. The kind of love that makes me weak in the knees and makes me wants to see a glimpse of her smile every minute of every day. I just wanted to get back to what you talked about earlier, the key ingredients to a relationship.”

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “Well, I’d like to know your professional opinion on whether or not a man should be condemned by his past. Does love, real love, deserve a clean slate for its fragile beginnings?”

  She knew he wasn’t going to make things easy on her.

  “As a doctor, I know the right answer to the question. Yes, everyone deserves to start fresh, and if it really is love then your past shouldn’t matter as long as your past truly stays in the past. As a woman, that question is harder to answer. There will be self doubt until she trusts you enough to know that what you say is the truth and will always be the truth. It’s right for her to be cautious. Statistics show that it is especially difficult for men to change the dating pattern when looking for the next woman. They rarely vary their technique, especially when a man is over thirty. And when a woman has been burned in a past relationship, it’s hard to change their way of thinking when involved with a man they know has a prolific history with women. What if she falls in love with you and then you break her heart? I’m not sure I…I mean…she could go through that again. For some women, love only comes once. She’ll need to decide if you’re worth the risk.”

  “And am I worth the risk?” Jake asked softly.

  Eve felt a vise she recognized as panic grip her heart. “I…I don’t know.”

  There was a charged silence across the airwaves, and Eve chanced to look up at Lucy. There were silent tears streaming down her face and everyone at the station was frozen, listening to the exchange.

  “I guess I’ll have to do everything I can to get her to trust me, because for some men, once they meet the right woman, all others are just a distant memory. There’s something about meeting the one, you know what I’m saying, Doc. I knew it from the first instant. Something just clicked inside me and I knew it was meant to be. And then I touched her, and all the pieces fell into place. I won’t give up on her. I’ll work as hard as I have to to make her trust me. Because for me, all those other women are just a distant memory. Love only comes once, and I’ve found her.”

  ***

  Eve had never been so ready to get home to a crumbling house in her life. She’d gone through the rest of her program on autopilot, not really sure what she’d told her listeners and hoping it was good advice, whatever it was.

  She almost wept in relief when she saw Jake’s truck parked in her driveway, but managed to get out of the car without flinging herself into his arms. He was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, two glasses of champagne in his hands.

  “Hey, Doc,” he said.

  It would take a stronger woman than she’d ever been for the need in his eyes to not weaken her resolve.

  “Hey, yourself. Nice night.” It was forty degrees and looked like it could rain at any moment, but her body temperature was so high she hardly noticed.

  He laughed and handed her a glass. “Absolutely beautiful.”

  Eve ignored the butterflies in her stomach and accepted the glass, unsure what she should do next.

  “Why don’t we get this out of the way?”

  Jake kept his hands still, sure she’d run like a rabbit if he touched her now, and gently lowered his lips, soft and warm, to hers. He rubbed them gently back and forth, and felt her shudder beneath him. The tension left her shoulders and her body relaxed as she leaned into the kiss. And when he heard her moan, he reached up gently to cup her face. Her mouth opened beneath his, and her surrender was more than he could have hoped for. His tongue warred with hers and she met his passion with equal fervor.

  There was an ache deep inside that Eve couldn’t describe. It pounded in her chest and throbbed in her loins. But the pleasure…God, the pleasure was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. She pulled him closer and let the fire burn that she’d left as embers so long ago. The hardness of his body cradled her softness, and she wanted nothing more than to lose herself in his touch.

  When they parted, Eve knew her life had changed. She’d always remember him like this, the shadow of night and the glow of the moonlight, soft music and gentle hands. Hands that were patient even though she could feel the vibrations of fierce desire coursing through his body.

  “There,” he said, his voice husky with need. “That’s better.”

  “I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Eve said, shaken.

  He laughed and brought his lips to hers again briefly. “Well, I think it’s something I could get used to it. Dance with me.”

  He turned on the stereo he’d left in the bed of his truck, and the soothing sounds of Billie Holiday floated through the air. He held out his hand, waiting for her to make the next move. When she stepped into his embrace, it was like coming home.

  They moved slowly and held each other lightly, knowing what a tenuous beginning they shared. And when his lips touched hers again, everything disappeared around her, the music, the autumn air and the stars. There was only Jake, and she could feel his love bearing down on her, no matter how hard she tried to ward it off.

  “I’m dizzy,” she whispered.

  “Me, too,” he said, stopping the slow spin. “You make me want, Eve. So much that I ache from it.”

  “I...”

  “Shh,” he said, placing his finger across her lip. “You don’t have to explain anything. I know we’re moving at different speeds. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

  “I don’t think I can take any more surprises,” she said with a nervous laugh.

  “Come on,” he said, leading her to the back of his truck.

  “Well, you’ve been busy,” she said, eyeing the blankets and pillows.

  “I thought we’d lie under the stars and talk a bit if that’s all right with you. I’d like to know you, all of you.”

  This was the last thing Eve had expected. Talk. She was sure Jake would have tried to get her into bed at this point, and she probably would have gone with him. He obviously had a few tricks up his sleeve, and she’d have to keep on her
toes to keep her heart protected.

  “Okay,” she said, getting into the truck bed. She accepted the hot chocolate he’d poured from a thermos and propped her back against the mound of pillows. When he settled in beside her she scooted closer, his body like a furnace on the cool night.

  “Tell me your deepest, darkest secrets,” he said, not so subtly putting his arm around her.

  “Very smooth,” she said, laughing. “Let’s see, I love music from the forties, and I am deathly afraid of rodents.”

  “Hmm, not exactly the dark secrets I was looking for, but I can work with it. Now it’s my turn. I’m an only child, with more money than I could ever spend in this lifetime because my grandmother decided to bequeath all of her money to me and my only cousin for some reason that I’ll never understand, and I like to buy my boxer shorts from Wal-Mart because they’re the softest. I also would love to have a dog someday. I never had one as a kid because they didn’t mix well with my mother’s rose garden.”

  “Ooh, very mysterious. Is it my turn?”

  He answered her by kissing the top of her head and smoothing the wayward curls behind her ears.

  “I graduated from high school two years early and completed my undergrad and graduate work by the time I was twenty. I had my doctorate by the time I was twenty-four and opened a private practice the same year. I’m what you might call a prodigy.”

  “Mmm…smart women really turn me on,” he said, nipping the side of her jaw with his teeth. “I have an MBA that I have never used and nearly gave my parents a stroke when I told them I was going into the construction business. But, I’m very proud of the company, and they’ve learned to live with it and not talk about me in polite company. I believe I’m considered the black sheep of the family.”