“Not among the country-club set in Phoenix, it’s not.” She looked down at her fingernails, pretending to examine a chip in her nail polish.
He watched her for several long moments. He wanted to go. He really wanted to go. Maybe James Vandenberg was seeing someone else. Maybe he didn’t like blondes. Maybe if Vandenberg was out of the picture…
“All right,” he said. “For you, I’ll get my hair cut.”
Sandy stood up, grinning. “And I get to pick out your clothes, the same way you picked out these for me.”
“Fine, but I really don’t think you’re going to have much of a choice,” he told her. “The dinner dance is black tie.”
“Yeah, but when they say black, they don’t mean leather, McCade.”
Maybe Sandy would dance with McCade and realize she didn’t want to be with anyone else. Maybe…
McCade laughed, and this time he felt his smile reach his eyes.
THREE
MCCADE SAT IN the chair with his eyes closed, listening to the hum of the blow-dryer, letting Tony work his magic. He’d awakened late that morning, and had gone into the bathroom to cut and then shave off his beard.
After Tony finished making him look more presentable to the Phoenix socialites he’d be rubbing elbows with this evening, McCade had to swing by and pick up the tuxedo Sandy had picked out and he’d bought for the occasion. She’d talked him into getting a stack of other clothes as well—chinos and polo shirts he swore he’d never wear. The tux wasn’t quite his style either, but he didn’t have any choice tonight. The alterations were supposed to be done by three-thirty, which would give him barely enough time to get to the condo, change, bully Sandy into her new clothes, and put on her makeup.
He smiled. He liked putting makeup on Sandy. He liked standing close enough to feel her body heat. He liked touching her soft, smooth skin—
“Jeez Louise, you haven’t even seen how beautiful I’ve made you, and you’re already as happy as a little clam.” Tony’s voice cut into his thoughts. “Or maybe it’s thinking about a certain gorgeous blonde that’s making you smile.”
McCade’s eyes opened slowly, and the look he gave Tony was lethal. The hairdresser turned off the dryer, cheerfully ignoring him. “I’d recognize that foolish little smile anywhere, although I must admit I never thought I’d see it on you, sweetheart.”
“Spare me the analysis,” McCade sat forward. “Am I done?”
“Not so fast!” Tony pushed McCade back in his seat. “Don’t you go running out of here spreading pieces of your former hair all the way to the door just because I’ve figured out your terrible secret.”
McCade frowned at himself in the mirror. His wavy brown hair looked…upwardly mobile. Shorter on the sides and around his ears, moussed up and off his forehead in the front, yet long enough to flop down when gravity or humidity won the ongoing battle. With the sun streaks of blond, he looked like he spent his weekends sailing or, ugh, even playing golf.
“I notice you’re not denying anything.” Tony slowly gathered up the big bib that had caught most of McCade’s cut hair.
“That’s because I’m ignoring you,” McCade said calmly.
“Deny it.” The hairdresser’s brown eyes were suddenly serious. “Look me in the eye and say, ‘Tony, I am not in love with Sandy.’”
McCade met Tony’s steady gaze. “Tony, I am not in love with—” But he had to look away. “Dammit.”
Tony knew better than to tease. He crossed his big arms over his ample girth. “McCade, if you love this girl, why the hell are you helping her catch some other guy?”
“I want her to be happy,” he said simply.
Tony erupted in a fit of laughter. “You want her to be happy,” he wheezed. “Beautiful, just beautiful. Good grief, McCade, I had no idea you were such a flaming idiot. Hasn’t it occurred to you that Sandy would be stupendously happy if you told her that you loved her?”
“She doesn’t want me,” McCade said tightly.
Tony just laughed harder at that. “Tell her you love her, McCade. Or I will.”
Sandy answered the phone on the first ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me.”
“McCade, thank God. I was worried about you.”
“I told you last night I scheduled an appointment with Tony to get my hair cut and…” McCade cleared his throat. “He, uh, didn’t call you, did he?”
“Tony? Why would he call me?”
“I don’t know. Look, I’m really running late.”
“Late I can handle,” Sandy told him. “You were gone so long I was starting to think…”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You were starting to think what?”
“Forget it.”
“What? That I skipped town?”
“Well, yeah,” she admitted. He had been gone when she woke up, and he’d taken his Harley rather than her car. At first she’d thought nothing of it, but as it got later and later she’d started assuming the worst.
“Thanks a lot.” All humor was gone from his voice. “Tell me, when was the last time I promised you something, then didn’t deliver?”
“Never. But you’ve been acting so strangely, I thought maybe—”
“Yeah, well, you were wrong,” he said tightly. “Look, they’re finishing up the alterations on my tux. I’m going to change here, then get over there as quickly as I can. But it’ll be another twenty minutes at least—”
“I’m going to have to meet you up at the Pointe,” Sandy cut him off. “I need to get there early. Sorry, but I can’t wait for you, McCade.”
He swore softly. “I wanted to help you with your makeup.”
“I’ll have to muddle through on my own,” she said. “I’ll see you over there, all right?”
“Sandy, wear the white dress, okay?”
“I’ve already got it on.”
“You do?” McCade’s good humor was restored. “Way to go! I thought I’d have to dress you myself.”
Sandy flushed at the vivid picture that brought to mind. “I’ve got to get going. Try not to be late.”
“You may not recognize me with my hair this short,” he told her. “I’ll be the one in the tux—holding a camera.”
Sandy had never seen so many tuxedos in her life.
The early-evening temperature had to be pushing one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, and tuxedo-clad men quickly crossed the hot pavement between their air-conditioned luxury cars and the cool lobby of the fancy Phoenix resort.
And even greater than the number of tuxedos were the number of sequins in the lobby. Most of the evening gowns that accompanied all those tuxedos were bespattered with sequins and glitter and shiny beads of one kind or another.
Glancing down at her own nonreflective dress, Sandy had to smile. Compared with most of the others, this dress that she had worried so much about wearing was simple and elegantly understated. Short as all get-out, she’d have to admit, but nowhere near as attention seeking as, say, the dress covered with imitation peacock feathers that just walked in the door.
Sandy spotted James Vandenberg near the entrance to the room they would be using for Harcourt’s speech. He looked good in a tuxedo. His dark hair was slicked back from his handsome face, and his eyes glistened from the excitement and anticipation that seemed to boil throughout the lobby.
Her stomach clenched with nervousness as she tried to imagine carrying on a conversation with James. She could handle the business end, but after they finished discussing scheduling and camera work, she wouldn’t know what to say. She was lousy at small talk, and she had absolutely no idea what the man was interested in. No idea at all.
As she watched, another man in a tuxedo shook hands with James. Sandy slowed her steps. God, didn’t it figure that all the men who looked like Greek gods would know each other? The second man had his back to her, but the expensive fabric of his tuxedo looked as if it had been cut and sewn with his body in mind. And what a body. Taller than James, thi
s man was lean and strong, with shoulders that were almost as broad as…
No, it couldn’t be.
Just then, James turned to survey the crowd and caught her gaze. His eyes widened slightly and then he smiled. With his eyes still on her, James said something to the man standing next to him.
That man turned around, hoisting a handheld video camera onto his shoulder.
It was McCade.
But oh, my God, what a McCade! Sandy felt her pulse kick into triple time as her mouth went dry. She had never seen him with his hair this short, she realized. She’d never seen his ears before, at least not for any length of time. He had really nice ears. He had really nice everything. Without the beard, he somehow looked more familiar, yet still so different. It had to be the hair, Sandy decided. The way he was wearing it pushed up and back, so much more of his face could be seen.
McCade was outrageously handsome when half of his face was hidden by his hair. With his whole face showing, he was beyond description.
As Sandy met his gaze a smile curled around the edges of McCade’s mouth. His eyes looked like liquid turquoise.
“Hi,” she said, her voice sounding breathless.
“Hi,” he echoed her. He turned and Sandy followed his gaze, looking straight at James.
James! Oops, he was standing next to her. “Good evening.” She took the hand he offered and shook it. “Ready for this?”
“Absolutely,” James told her with a flash of his even white teeth. “You look terrific.”
He was still holding on to her fingers. “Thank you.” She awkwardly pulled her hand free. From the corner of her eyes, she saw McCade fade into the crowd. He was deserting her! No, he was giving her privacy, she realized. But she didn’t want privacy. She wanted McCade’s quick mind and dry wit near her, ready to take a faltering conversation and revive it.
From across the room, McCade watched as Sandy talked to James. She was tense—her shoulders tight. Her entire body seemed to close in on itself, turning her into a giant bundle of anxiety.
She needed more help. It was going to take more than clothes and a new hairstyle to get Vandenberg’s attention. Sandy needed a major attitude adjustment.
As McCade watched she said something and James laughed. But it wasn’t a real, honest-to-goodness belly laugh; it was much too polite. They shook hands again and went off in different directions.
McCade pushed his way through the crowd, following Sandy into the conference room where Harcourt was slated to give his speech. But there was no time to talk. She was kept busy right up until the candidate began talking, and then McCade had his job to do. It wasn’t until his camera was packed and in one of the equipment vans that he could focus on Sandy.
She was standing by the main door, talking to James and her assistant, Frank. Frank left with a cheery wave, and as McCade watched, Sandy got even more tense. After about thirty more seconds James disappeared.
“Hey.” McCade came up behind her. “The band’s starting to play in the ballroom. What do you say we take a spin around the floor?”
“Since when do you know how to dance?” Sandy raised one eyebrow. “It’s not something you can pick up simply from watching Fred Astaire movies.”
“My mother taught me,” he admitted.
She laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“She told me good looks weren’t everything. She said there were three things a man needed to learn in life in order to succeed. One was ballroom dancing.”
He pulled her hand into the crook of his arm and led her back toward the ballroom.
“What were the other two?” she asked.
“Research,” McCade told her. “She said memorizing the answers to a test didn’t make a man smart—it made him a parrot. But a man who knew how to do research had the answers to virtually any question at his fingertips.”
A twenty-piece swing band was playing in one corner of the room. McCade tugged Sandy gently toward the dance floor.
“You might know how to dance, but I don’t.”
“Just follow me,” he said. “How’d it go with Vandenberg?”
“He makes me really nervous,” Sandy admitted.
“So I noticed.”
“I made a joke, and I don’t think he got it. I wish…”
“What?” McCade looked down into her eyes. Heaven was that shade of blue, so soothing and pure.
But she shook her head. “How do you tell the difference between love and lust?” she asked instead.
He laughed in surprise. “You’re asking the wrong man. My experiences with love are extremely limited.”
Sandy smiled up at him. “Come on, McCade. I’ve known you for fifteen years, and you’ve been in love at least twenty different times—”
“It wasn’t ever real,” he told her. “I’ve really been in love just once.”
“So there are differences. Tell me what they are.”
He shook his head. “Kirk—”
“Please. You’re the only person in the world I can talk to about this.”
He was silent, just looking down at her as they danced.
“Did you know it was love before or after you slept with her?” Sandy asked.
McCade shook his head and rolled his eyes. “Sandy—”
“McCade.” She imitated him.
“Before,” he told her. “I knew before.”
“You’re positive?”
“Very,” McCade said.
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I never made love to her.”
McCade could see surprise in her eyes. “You’re kidding.”
“Can’t we talk about something else?” he said a little desperately. “Have you seen Spike Lee’s latest movie yet?”
“How could you be in love with someone and not—”
“Look, it takes two to tango, Kirk.” McCade smiled grimly. “All right? Now, can we drop this?”
Sandy studied his handsome face. His arms felt so solid around her, and he was holding her close enough so that their thighs brushed as he moved. They fit together perfectly, just as he had said they would—Wait. He’d been talking about Sandy and James, not Sandy and himself.
She closed her eyes, imagining a world where Clint McCade saw her as a woman, not just a friend. He would hold her even closer, and she would melt against him, and…“I’m sorry, but I don’t believe it. There’s no woman on earth who would refuse you.”
McCade just laughed.
FOUR
SANDY THREW HER keys onto the coffee table, and herself onto the couch.
“Wow, that was incredibly not fun,” she said into the soft cushions. “James Vandenberg obviously finds me about as appealing as flat beer.”
“Could be worse,” McCade volunteered, shrugging out of his jacket and sitting down in the rocking chair across from her. “He could find you about as appealing as warm flat beer.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “Cheer me up, why don’t you, McCade?”
He unfastened his bow tie and began unbuttoning his shirt. “What do you know about body language?”
“Not much.”
“Hmm.”
Sandy sat up. “And just what is ‘hmm’ supposed to mean?”
“Whenever I saw you talking to James, you were giving him ‘go away’ signals with your body.” McCade unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. “You crossed your arms and you stood with your legs tightly together. Your posture and your stance read ‘don’t touch’ loud and clear.”
“I wasn’t doing it intentionally—”
McCade yanked his shirt free from his pants and shrugged it off. “That’s the deal with body language. Most of the time it’s done unconsciously. Somewhere down the line you’ve forgotten your female courting techniques.”
Sandy shifted in her seat, crossing her arms. “This is all news to me. How could I have forgotten something that I was never told?”
“Defensive posture.” McCade pointed to her crossed arms before he pulled off hi
s boots. “You just told me with your body that you don’t like what you’re hearing, and you’re not going to listen to me.”
“And exactly which issue of Playboy did you read this in, McCade?” Sandy asked, her arms still firmly crossed.
“Look”—McCade sat next to her on the couch—“I’m going to hit you with some male courting techniques, and if you can honestly say that you still think it’s a load of garbage after that, then I’ll shut up, all right?”
Wearing only a sleeveless undershirt with his tuxedo pants, he looked like the McCade she knew in high school. He sat comfortably at one end of the couch, facing her, his right leg bent at the knee and angled across the cushion in front of him. He raked his fingers through his short hair, making it look perfectly tousled and very sexy.
Sandy lowered her gaze and shrugged. “Fire away.”
“First of all, don’t sit like that,” he said. He pulled her so that she faced him, lifting her left arm up so that it lay along the back of the couch. He dropped her right hand into her lap. With their knees almost touching, he leaned, then inched forward slightly.
“Step one: Invade the woman’s personal space. Step two: Direct eye contact.” He smiled into her eyes.
Sandy smiled back. “This is silly—”
“I’m not finished,” he interrupted. “Without saying a word, a man can let a woman know quite clearly that he’s interested in her. Sexually interested.”
McCade let his eyes drop, focusing for a moment on her lips, then traveling even lower, lingering on the low neckline of her dress. Sandy felt the urge to giggle, but by the time he’d slowly dragged his gaze back to her eyes, her mouth was dry and that urge was long gone.
“That’s step number three,” he told her. “And if by now the woman hasn’t run away or threatened physical harm, a man might try step four—a nonsexual touching gesture, something harmless like a handshake…”
He lifted her hand, drawing her fingers into his.
“…but he’d turn that handshake into a caress.” He ran his thumb lightly over the back of her hand. “This is not just a friendly touch—the message has clear sexual overtones.”
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