A LONG HOT CHRISTMAS

by Barbara Daly

  Reading it made Hope dizzy. The residents had organized a class action suit against the City of New York, which in turn was suing the contracting firm that had built the buildings, which was suing the plumbing contractor, who had lost no time in suing Palmer, which was, of course, counter-suing everybody.

  Four law firms, millions of dollars, and all because of a few spotty ceilings.

  Hope sighed. It must be worse than that. She felt sad for the people of Magnolia Heights who'd moved in with high expectations that hadn't been met. She wished she knew if there were something she could have done differently, but…

  She forced herself not to go back to the Inventory Control Number 12867 files. That pipe was invulnerable. Nothing should have gone wrong.

  Surprisingly, the computer pinged, the signal for a new e-mail. So Slidell had connected her with the outside world, at least. Her eyes opened wide when she read, "Meet me at six. Usual place. Big problem." It was addressed to Benton and came from CWal@BrinkleyMeyers.com.

  Could "CWal" be Cap Waldstrum?

  Instinctively she cast furtive glances left and right and then deleted the message. She couldn't let Benton see that someone had read it. A second later she realized that deleting meant Benton wouldn't get the message at all.

  How embarrassing. Somehow the loaner was still receiving Benton's e-mail. Better he miss a message than find out she had accidentally gained access to it. She'd pay attention next time, wouldn't open anything that wasn't addressed to her.

  By now the tech people had gone home. Tomorrow she'd correct the error. But how could she? Could she really tell Slidell he'd given her access to Benton's e-mail? Because to do that, she'd have to admit she'd read the message.

  She didn't know what made her lose her focus for a moment, cause her to glance out the windows at the darkening December night and most amazingly, made her long to go home.

  Everything she had to do tonight could be done at home. She could pack up her dinosaur-laptop and the zip disks, pack up the print materials for the presentation she'd make on Friday to a mega-conglomerate who needed pipe, and settle down at her desk—no, on the sofa—to finish her day's work.

  She might even… No, too much trouble. Well, maybe not. She might skim through Zabars to pick up some nibbles and something for dinner with a tad more character than the aluminum-foil-packed dinners that filled her freezer. She might even open a good bottle of wine and indulge in a glass.

  What would really be nice would be for someone to call and say they didn't have anything for dinner, and did she, and it would be especially nice if that someone were Sam…

  More pipe dreams. She was simply having one of her rare moments of … of… She guessed you'd call it loneliness.

  But she'd be getting home two hours earlier than she'd ever gotten home on a Monday night—for no special reason. It was something to mention in passing to Faith and Charity.

  * * *

  Chapter 4

  « ^ »

  Benton Quayle, CEO of Palmer Pipe, gave Sam one of those bone-crushing handshakes and size-you-up looks men give each other while the women are trading air-kisses and rating each other's clothes, shoes and hair. "Sam Sharkey," Benton mused. "That's the sort of name you don't forget. Seems like I've heard it recently."

  Sam nodded. "Could be. I'm at Brinkley Meyers."

  "Ah." A thousand words passed silently between them in that one "ah." "Are you involved in our unfortunate Magnolia Heights case?"

  "Not directly."

  Hope watched another thousand words zoom between the masculine brains. She wondered how they did it.

  Benton snapped his fingers. "I know who you are. You're the hotshot litigator they told me about. The Shark."

  Sam smiled. "When a lawyer has a name like mine it's hard not to get nicknamed 'The Shark.'"

  "Yes. Well." After another long, assessing stare at Sam, Benton turned to Hope. "So you're a friend of The Shark's?"

  Hope had begun to feel left out. This was her party after all "No, Benton, I'm one of your employees. In Marketing. The Shark is my friend."

  Fortunately, Benton laughed. "She has such a sense of humor, hasn't she? One of her strengths."

  Hope blinked. She knew she had a sense of humor—you had to have a sense of humor when you had sisters who were dingbats—but she thought she'd kept it pretty well hidden at the office.

  "Ruthie, this is Sam Sharkey," he said to his wife, "and you know Hope."

  "Sam." Ruthie, a pretty, plump woman, held out a glittering hand. Cut off Ruthie's hand, take it to a pawn shop and you'd be set for life. "So lovely to have you both here. Are you from New York? No? Ne-bras-ka. Really. Omaha, by any chance? Palmer has a branch in Omaha. Big market for irrigation pipe, I think. You'd have to ask Benton."

  "Hope," she said next, with more warmth than she'd ever shown to Hope. Not even the man's wife could imagine Hope would sleep with Benton to get the vice presidency if she had Sam to sleep with.

  Fortunately, Ruthie's gaze went right back to Sam, because the very thought, the highly inappropriate thought of sleeping with Sam was sending flushes of heat all the way down through Hope's cleavage. Feeling her breasts swell, her nipples harden against the silk of her dress, she tossed her shawl over one shoulder to hide the evidence.

  Benton reached up to clap a hand on Sam's shoulder and edged him away before Ruthie could get her mouth properly open to speak. "Come on, son," he said. "I'll introduce you around. You might need to know some of these guys someday."

  That left Hope and Ruthie gazing after their men, Hope surreptitiously fanning herself, Ruthie merely looking puzzled. "They've bonded," Hope explained.

  Ruthie held out her hand to another arrival, but kept her other hand on Hope's wrist. "It's the Magnolia Heights thing," she whispered when she'd said hello and he's over there, do go speak to him to the latest guests. "It's all he thinks about these days."

  The words, "Meet me at six. Usual place. Big problem," skimmed through Hope's mind. "The whole thing is unfortunate," she murmured. "Because whatever the problem is, it can't be the pipe."

  "Are you that sure?" Ruthie sounded worried.

  "The pipe is invincible," Hope said. Her confidence went down deep into her soul. "I suspect the plumbing contractor did it."

  "Somebody did it. Have you seen the damage up there?" The genuine concern on Ruthie's face gave her bejeweled façade a new dimension.

  "I haven't," Hope confessed. "I suppose I should take a trip up there and see for myself."

  "I went with my Junior League group." Ruthie sighed. "It's serious. I've never seen Benton so tense. You'll keep it between us, won't you?" She looked even more worried.

  Hope felt both touched and flattered to have gained the woman's confidence. All, apparently, because she'd walked in with Sam. "Of course," she assured her. "Benton's keeping up a good front at the office. No one needs to know he's worrying."

  "Darling…"

  The voice came from behind her and its ring of desperation was compelling. She turned to find herself nose to bow tie with Sam.

  "Ah, there you are," he said, speaking into her hair and undoubtedly blowing her ruler-straight part awry. "I brought you a glass of wine."

  If she moved back, she'd step on Ruthie's plump little toes, so she gave herself a second to savor the sensation of being this close to him, to his faint, musky sandalwood scent, to the crisp starch in his pleated white shirt.

  Maybe Sam himself wasn't responsible for the edge of excitement that gripped her when he was around, that gripped her even more tightly now. Maybe it was just that growing up with two sisters she hadn't spent enough time with men to take certain things about them for granted. They were different, and she was just now noticing how different.

  Noticing was one thing. Reacting in this frivolous feminine way was quite another, and it had to stop.

  "Where is this alleged glass of wine?" she asked the perfectly tied bow tie.

  "Over your shoulder," he said. "Don't move.
And I mean don't move. I came seeking sanctuary." As if they were dancing, he moved them both in a little half-turn and separated himself from her, then handed her a glass of red wine that seemed to have been sloshed a number of times. Further evidence was the crimson splotch on his French cuff.

  She took it gratefully. Seeing that her new friend Ruthie had turned her attention to other arrivals, she said, "Want to go hold up that wall over there for a minute?"

  "Great idea."

  The room was an elegant space apparently decorated by the same firm who'd done Versailles for King Louis the Fourteenth. Sam looked up toward the frieze of angels on the plastered ceiling eighteen feet above him. "I expected a loft," he remarked, "with exposed pipe."

  Hope followed his gaze. "I love lofts with exposed pipe," she said. "I looked for one when I got ready to buy, but I didn't have time to handle a big renovation project. And besides—" she turned to him "—it wouldn't have had Palmer Pipe. Palmer was founded in 1950 and the lofts in Soho date back to—"

  Sam's stifled snort stopped her from continuing her perfectly sensible and absolutely accurate reasoning process. "Well, anyway, that's why I didn't," she mumbled, scraping one toe against the marble floor.

  She cleared her throat and returned to the original subject. "It was interesting the way Benton glommed onto you," she said. "I've never seen him do anything like that. It was like he was trying to win your approval. Most of the time it goes in the other direction."

  Sam's expression began the transition toward serious. "It was more like he wanted to get to know me," Sam said. "Or wanted me to get to know him. Like maybe…"

  Hope's breath caught in her throat. "Like maybe the Magnolia Heights case is going to court and you'll be involved?"

  His gaze deepened and darkened. There wasn't a hint of laughter in his indigo eyes now. "Yeah. Maybe."

  Remembering her promise to Ruthie, Hope glanced nervously around. "We shouldn't be talking about it."

  "Why not? We're on the same side."

  "Well, of course. But…"

  "We are on the same side, aren't we? Is there something you know about the case that hasn't been made public?"

  Hope suddenly realized this wasn't the smooth, outwardly relaxed Sam she'd been getting to know. She was seeing The Shark for the first time. The impact of his piercing eyes sent a thrill of impending danger through her body. Not danger to her. She had nothing to fear. But danger to whomever might oppose him.

  Her new uncertainties buzzed her again like a horde of bothersome hornets. Big problem. Have you seen the damage up there? I've never seen Benton so tense.

  "All I know," she said with the confidence she felt, "is that 12867 is a virtually perfect product. Something must have gone wrong in the installation."

  "You called it by name," Sam said. The laughter reappeared, lightening his eyes, giving them glints of stardust. "You called a pipe by its first name."

  "Oh, stop it," Hope said crossly.

  Smooth as silk, The Shark glided away into the night and Sam the Social Animal was back.

  When Hope saw who was edging his way toward them, she wished The Shark had hung around for a few more minutes. Without thinking, she whispered, "Kiss me."

  His startled expression, the blink of his dark lashes filled the nanosecond before his mouth came down to hers, lightly, his lips moving over hers in a soft, persuasive caress. She closed her eyes against the brief electrical shock of contact, then felt every feminine instinct in her body urging her to return the kiss, to deepen it, to let the pure pleasure of it flow over her…

  "Hope, hi. Sorry to interrupt."

  …to be replaced suddenly by an intense displeasure. She had to force herself to pull away from Sam. His lips clung to hers, too, and his eyes were unreadable as he turned toward the intruder.

  "Paul," she said. "How very nice to see you." Anyone else would have skulked away from a couple kissing, which was the outcome she'd hoped for, but not Paul. Still very close to Sam, she felt a rumble emerge from him, suspiciously like the sound of a laugh being swallowed, and she gave him a sharp glance. Or tried to. As soon as she looked at him, she felt like melting.

  Oblivious to undercurrents, Paul leaned forward to miss her cheek, then looked expectantly at Sam.

  "Sam, this is Paul the … Perkins. Paul Perkins." Someday she was going to slip up and actually call him St. Paul the Perfect to his face. "Shining star of the Marketing Department," she added with a smile and a burst of insincere generosity.

  As the men shook hands, Hope managed both to chastise herself for her envy of Paul and grant herself forgiveness. Who had the strength of character, the self-confidence, not to be envious of Paul?

  Just look at him. Blond hair, an Al Gore face, a nice smile, a firm handshake, square shoulders, squarer personality, a beautiful wife who, although she was intelligent and well-educated, had chosen, chosen, mind you, to give up her career in order to provide Paul with a smoothly-run household and two children of extraordinary brains and beauty. Both. If you didn't believe him, Paul had the pictures in the alligator Gucci wallet that matched his alligator Gucci loafers, and if you still didn't believe him, he'd pull out the latest nursery school progress reports, which he just happened to have tucked in the breast pocket of his Loro Piano cashmere suit jacket.

  You couldn't help hating him.

  Tuning in to the conversation, she observed bitterly that Paul had even taken Sam in. Listen to them. They'd graduated in the same class from Harvard. They had mutual friends. Paul knew people at Brinkley Meyers. They belonged to his country club.

  Bleah!

  Paul moved on at last to spread his charm around. Sam lifted two pieces of edible art off the silver tray a member of the waitstaff thrust toward him and hoovered down a shrimp that was wearing a shredded-carrot skirt and a cilantro-leaf hat. "That guy," he said, starting a tiny puff paste skyscraper toward his mouth, "is as smooth as soy milk."

  Surprised, Hope stared at him. "Is that good or bad?"

  "I can't stand soy milk." He gave her a quick smile. "I shouldn't be so ungrateful. I got a kiss out of it."

  Hope blushed. "I'm sorry. I thought…"

  "He your competition for the vice presidency?"

  "However did you guess?" She slumped despondently against the glazed wall.

  "A certain tension I felt in the grip you've got on my elbow."

  Hope pulled her hand away as though it had been burned. "Oh, Sam, I am sorry. Did I hurt you?"

  "Nothing a little liniment won't cure." But he grinned at her. "Cap's mine," he added.

  "Your what?" She'd gotten a little lost in his smile.

  "My biggest competition for the partnership. It's different in a law firm. They might decide to offer partnerships to none of us or three of us. On the other hand—" In mid-gesture he thrust his hand at another passing tray of hors d'oeuvres and came away with two smoked salmon bites, one of which he put directly between Hope's parted lips. "Cap could turn up Number Three, making me Number Four and waiting my turn another year."

  "What could he possibly have that you don't?" Experiencing a strange rush of loyalty, Hope mumbled around the smoked salmon.

  "A wife."

  "Oh, surely in this day and age that couldn't…"

  "No. Brinkley Meyers is hardly old-fashioned enough to ask its partners to be married. But what it says about him is that he's settled. His life is organized. Cap can work without wondering when he'll find time to go to the grocery store and take his suits to the cleaners."

  "That's what Paul has. A wife." Gloom settled over Hope. Sam nodded. "I see what you mean."

  "You should be mingling."

  Hope jumped. "Oh, Benton, of course. Sam and I just got involved in a conversation and…"

  Benton's indulgent, fatherly smile indicated he'd observed the kiss, and Hope felt the heat rising in her face again. But Benton was smiling. "I know, I know," he said genially. "Take Sam around, though, introduce him to a few more of the folks."

 
He barreled forward into the crowd, leaving Sam gazing at Hope, looking every bit as puzzled as she felt.

  * * *

  It was late when they emerged from the elegant old apartment building where Benton lived and into the relative quiet of the tree-lined side street on the Upper East Side.

  "Can we walk for a while?"

  He sounded subdued. It worried her, because she still, ages after his kiss, felt like flying. "Sure," she said, making an effort to sound matter-of-fact. "I can catch a cab on Madison."

  "Warm enough?"

  "Oh, yes." Her words made white clouds like smoke rings in the cold air. His eyes were picking up glints from the streetlights as his gaze flickered over her, then lingered on her face. That look heated her blood, sent it racing through her veins. Yes, she was definitely warm enough.

  He took her arm. "Those snow boots look sort of decorative. Do they work?"

  Hope glanced down at the suspiciously shiny sidewalk, then at her short, heeled boots with their fluffy linings peeking up out of the top. No. Don't let go of my arm, not for even a second. If you do, I'll fall flat on my… She leaned into his shoulder. "They're supposed to. I've never actually put them to the test."

  Somehow his arm was around her instead of merely linking with hers, and he pulled her a little closer.

  "You're not wearing snow boots at all," she said, feeling shorter of breath with every passing second.

  "I don't need snow boots. I'm from Nebraska."

  "Oh. That makes sense." She smiled up at him, not realizing how close he was until her face brushed his chin. She quickly turned away.

  For a few minutes they moved along in silence, Sam matching his stride to hers. Ahead, cars crowded Madison Avenue, lights flashing, horns honking. But walking beneath the frosted trees, down the street of tall, elegant town houses, Hope felt that she and Sam were in a completely different, perfectly serene world.

  "I was a big hit at your party," he said at last.

  "I was a big hit at your party," she reminded him.

  "So do we have a deal?" He halted and turned her toward him, looking her squarely in the eyes. She gazed up at him. How could she say anything but—