Body Language

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Time for lunch,” he announced as he unloaded the contents of his bag on Sandy’s desk.

  “McCade, the entire office thinks we’re having a passionate affair. Locking ourselves in my office in the middle of the day is not going to help matters any.”

  “We’re just having lunch,” he protested. He opened a container of chicken salad and helped himself to a forkful. “Mmm, this is great. You’ve gotta try this—”

  “Right now half of my staff are devising some sort of office betting pool, probably having to do with the size of your smile when you leave.” Sandy crossed her arms.

  “You want to go to the movies tonight?” McCade asked, putting a large helping of three-bean salad onto a paper plate. He sat back, putting his feet up on the other guest chair.

  “You’re ignoring me, McCade,” Sandy fumed. “I hate it when you ignore me.”

  He dropped his feet heavily back onto the floor and leaned over her desk. With one finger he pushed the intercom button. “Laura?”

  “Yes?” The tinny speaker made Laura’s voice sound higher and scratchier.

  He pushed the button again. “Just wanted to let you know we’re not having sex in here, okay?”

  Sandy slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand.

  McCade pushed the button again. “Okay?”

  “Okay,” Laura finally answered.

  He looked up at Sandy. “Better?”

  She was laughing despite herself. “My reputation is totally shot.”

  “Why?” asked McCade. He was serious. “You’ve made this company a really cool place to work, Sandy. It’s very casual, very friendly, and very relaxed. You give your workers lots of slack, plenty of free rein. Are you so certain they’re not going to do the same for you?”

  He reached across her desk and began loading a plate with chicken salad, lettuce, and a generous helping of cut-up vegetables. He set the plate down in front of her chair, then pointed at it. “Sit.”

  Sandy sat down slowly.

  “Besides, the pool has to do with when they think I’ll pop the question, not whether or not we’re getting it on.” McCade shrugged. “I guess they assume that’s a given.”

  “My staff thinks we’re going to get married?”

  “Frank offered me half of the take if I propose to you on the date he’s picked,” he said between mouthfuls of salad. “At ten bucks a head, it comes to about a hundred for him, a hundred for me. So two weeks from Saturday, I’m going to ask you to marry me, okay?”

  “God, McCade.” Sandy had been toying with her chicken salad, but now she put down the plastic fork and frowned at him. “You’re about as romantic as a slug.”

  He grinned. “Just wanted to give you a warning.”

  “And what would you do if I said yes?” She glared at him. “Are you really willing to risk spending the rest of your life with me for a lousy hundred bucks?”

  This was it, McCade thought. There would never be a better time to tell her that he was in love with her. But the words seemed to stick in his throat. He coughed and swallowed, then put his plate down carefully on the desk. “Look, Kirk—”

  The phone rang, and Sandy picked it up. “Kirk,” she identified herself. She listened for a few moments, then turned to her desk calendar, flipping through the pages. “No,” she said. “No, I can’t do it then.” Another pause, and she flipped the pages back again. “Right now?” She narrowed her eyes, looked at her watch, glanced at her plate of food wistfully, then finally said, “Tell them I’ll be right over.”

  She hung up the phone. “That was Aaron Fields’s secretary. I was supposed to go over to Channel Five tonight to sort through their video archives for footage we might be able to use in Harcourt’s bio. But James had to cancel, only he’s over there now, and both he and Fields are free, so—”

  “So once again, you don’t get to eat lunch.” McCade watched as she put on a fresh coat of lipstick.

  “The alternative was to risk letting the meeting take place without James.” She clicked her makeup mirror shut. “I’d skip lunch every day if it meant never having to be alone with Aaron Fields.”

  “You never told me why you don’t like him.”

  “He asked me out to dinner about three years ago.” Sandy’s hand was on the doorknob. “I was stupid enough to say yes, and he took that as a global response for the rest of the evening. That, combined with his incredible charm and his winsome way with the English language—among other things—won him his seat of honor on my top-ten list of people to avoid.”

  McCade nodded. “Some day when you have more time,” he said, “you can tell me what really happened.”

  How did he know there was more? Sandy knew he couldn’t read her mind. If he could do that, he’d already know how she felt about him, and he’d have long since left town.

  Frustration rose in her. How could he look at her like that, as if his feelings were hurt because she wasn’t telling him the entire truth, when he himself refused to open up and tell her what was behind those flashes of pain she saw so often in his eyes?

  “Sure,” she said. “Some day. Like, right after you tell me why you left L.A. in such a rush.”

  “You better go.” McCade glanced away from her. “Or you’ll be late.”

  “Sooner or later you’re going to have to tell me.”

  He looked up at her then, smiling as he met her gaze. His eyes were warm and so intense that Sandy caught her breath.

  “Sooner or later I will,” he agreed, then changed the subject. “Whaddaya say we catch a movie tonight? As long as your evening meeting has been canceled…?”

  Sandy hesitated.

  “Your pick,” he said, waving his words like bait in front of her.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You promise you won’t try to talk me into seeing something with lots of blood and guts and gunfire?”

  “Cross my heart.” McCade did just that. “Although I really want to see that new Bruce Willis movie. But I know how much you like Bruce Willis—”

  “You didn’t even take a breath!” Sandy said in mock outrage. “You crossed your heart, and you didn’t even pause for an instant before you broke your promise!”

  “You’ve been dying to see Bruce Willis. Don’t deny it.”

  She opened the door. “Good-bye, McCade.”

  “You win,” he called. “I won’t say another word about any movie at all until after we buy the tickets.”

  She stuck her head back in the door. “Deal.”

  “And then we found this absolutely priceless footage of Simon Harcourt. You probably don’t remember, but a few years ago there was a fire at a community center in south Phoenix,” Sandy told McCade as they pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater. “It was was one of those places kids could go to hang out after school, you know, to stay off the streets. Anyway, after the fire, the contractors’ estimates for the building repairs were so high, everyone thought that was the end of the center.”

  She unfastened her seat belt and got out of the car, continuing to talk as she locked and closed the door. “But Harcourt heard about it, and he had the building checked out. Structurally it was still sound—most of the damage had been done by smoke and water.”

  McCade and Sandy joined the line at the outside ticket window.

  “So he got together with some of the kids and the community leaders, and—”

  McCade slipped his arm around her waist. “And what?” he asked, pulling her close to him.

  “And they organized a cleanup.” Her voice sounded breathless as his hand accidentally slipped under the loose hem of her shirt. “McCade, what are you doing?”

  Her skin was like satin. She felt soft and warm and so smooth beneath his fingers. He forced his hand down to her denim-clad hips. But that wasn’t exactly safe territory either. Damn, he wanted to kiss her.

  “We’re supposed to be lovers, remember?” he said instead, holding her firmly when she tried to pull away as the line moved forward.
>
  “McCade…”

  He encircled her waist with both of his arms, pulling her to face him. This was just another game to him, Sandy realized. And he did enjoy his games.

  This particular game involved role playing. She’d always suspected McCade would have been as successful in front of the camera as behind it, and now she was more convinced than ever. He was acting as if he were in love with her, and that ardent look in his eyes could easily have been taken for the real thing—except she knew better.

  “No one knows us here,” she protested.

  “Are you sure?” he countered. “You never know who might be around—someone from your office, or one of Harcourt’s staff members. Phoenix isn’t that big a city.”

  At her skeptical look, he laughed. “If you don’t buy that, then at least consider this an opportunity to practice some body language,” he said. “Come on, anyone who’s watching would think that you don’t like me very much.”

  The line moved again, and McCade released Sandy as they walked forward. She reached out and took his hand.

  “This is a little more my style.” She glanced at him out of the corner of her eyes. “Do you think it’s enough to convince our audience—of which exactly zero are paying us a speck of attention, I might add—that I like you, McCade?”

  “It’s a start,” he said with a smile, loosely linking their fingers together.

  They reached the front of the line, and she had to let go of McCade as he took out his wallet. “Two tickets,” he said to the woman in the ticket booth, “for…” He turned to Sandy. “What are we seeing?”

  “You’re not going to buy my ticket.”

  “We can argue about that later. Right now we’re holding up the line. What are we seeing, Kirk?”

  “What do you think we’re seeing?” She couldn’t believe that he didn’t know. “The Bruce Willis movie, of course.”

  McCade nodded. “Of course.” As he bought the tickets he glanced back at Sandy and grinned.

  “You didn’t really think I’d choose another movie, did you?” she asked as he pulled her toward the popcorn line. “How much do I owe you for the ticket?”

  “Nothing. Zip. Zilch,” he said. “This is a date, Sandy. Cassandra. And I’m buying you popcorn and a soda too. So don’t try to talk me out of it.”

  Something in his eyes told her not to argue, and not even to tease. For some reason, paying for her tonight was important to him. It probably had to do with this role-playing game they were caught up in. Sandy knew that if she and McCade really were involved, he would insist on paying for everything.

  It was clear that he was getting into his part, and like most things McCade did, he was probably going overboard. But just how far overboard was he going to go? Was he going to get so wrapped up in this game that he wasn’t going to be able to stop playing even after they went home tonight?

  She didn’t want him to make love to her simply because he’d gotten swept up in a game. But how could she resist him?

  McCade dropped his arm loosely around her shoulders as they waited for the teenage employees at the concession stand to fill two large paper cups with soda. With his other hand, he pushed Sandy’s hair back from her face. It was a tender gesture, gentle and loving, matching the soft look in his eyes. Her heart lurched, and she had to look away from him.

  This was all just a fantasy. It looked like real life, it felt like real life, but it was nothing but dreams and wishes.

  Unless…

  Unless McCade got so caught up in all the make-believe that he actually convinced himself he really was in love with her. But then what? He’d stick around for a month or two, maybe three if she got lucky. Then he’d get restless and leave. However she looked at it, happily-ever-after wasn’t in the cards. Not with McCade.

  “So they organized a cleanup.” McCade carried both of the sodas and the popcorn toward the theater.

  Sandy stared at him blankly.

  “You were telling me about that news footage of Simon Harcourt that you found,” he reminded her.

  “Oh. Yeah. The community center. Right. Well, Harcourt donated all of the supplies needed to fix the place up, and the people in the neighborhood did the work themselves. But—get this, this is the amazing part—Harcourt actually helped with the physical labor.”

  “No kidding,” McCade said.

  “Nope. We have footage of him hauling sheets of plywood up the stairs. He’s in the background of an interview with the kids. Harcourt wasn’t looking for publicity, he didn’t say a single word in the entire clip. I’m not even sure the camera crews recognized him. He was just working, he looked like Joe Average, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, you know? I wouldn’t have known he was there if James hadn’t spotted him. But we zoomed in and sure enough, it was Simon Harcourt. James was mega-thrilled. He nearly did cartwheels because this stuff is gonna be so good for Harcourt’s image.”

  The theater was dim and cool and sparsely filled. McCade stopped next to an empty row of seats to the right of the center aisle. “This okay?” he asked.

  “Considering that it’s exactly where we always sit when we come here,” she said dryly, “I’d say it’s probably okay.”

  McCade entered first, but instead of sitting down in the seat next to the one on the aisle, he chose the seats all the way at the end of the row, by the wall.

  Sandy stared as he put the sodas in the cup holders attached to the arms of the chairs. He walked back toward her, took her hand, and pulled her with him.

  “Lovers sit near the wall, where it’s darker,” he explained.

  A gentle push sent Sandy into her seat, and McCade sat down next to her, slipping his arm around her shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  The dim lights cast mysterious shadows across his lean face and long nose as he looked down at her. His eyes seemed to glitter, suddenly looking more green and brown than blue. Smile, Sandy silently begged him. But he didn’t. He just stared at her.

  Her stomach and her heart were involved in a competition for the most number of flip-flops per minute. She took a deep breath. “McCade—”

  He tugged her toward him, reached with his right hand to pull her chin up, and stopped her words by covering her mouth with his own.

  It was an exquisite kiss. Sandy couldn’t remember ever having been kissed quite like this before. It was a slow, leisurely sort of kiss that started with McCade lightly running his tongue across her lips. It was a gentle kiss, but firm enough so that she knew he wasn’t going to end it anytime in the immediate future. His tongue swept across her lips again, this time with more pressure, a silent request for passage inside.

  Her lips parted before she had time to consider all of the ramifications of kissing McCade this way. And as McCade unhurriedly claimed her mouth, drinking her in, she stopped thinking. Spinning in a whirl of desire, she met each thrust of his tongue with equal passion, until there was no longer anything even remotely unhurried about this kiss. She heard him groan as he tried to pull her closer to him, but the arm of the chair got in the way.

  He pulled back then, and Sandy slowly became aware that the lights had gone down and the movie previews had started. She stared at McCade in the flickering light from the screen, and caught her breath at the heat, the unhidden hunger in his eyes. For one split second she allowed herself to hope that he truly wanted her, that maybe he even loved her.

  “Cassandra,” he said, and her hopes burst like a soap bubble.

  He knew exactly what he was doing. He was well in control. He would have called her Sandy, he never would have remembered to call her Cassandra if he wasn’t. No, her imagination was running away with her. McCade didn’t really want her, nor did he love her. This was all a game to him, and she couldn’t forget that. She couldn’t let herself get caught up in the fantasy, or she’d end up burned.

  He leaned toward her, to kiss her again, but she made herself turn away, pulling free from his arms. She clasped her hands tightly in her lap s
o that he wouldn’t see how badly they were shaking. Using all of her concentration, she stared up at the movie screen as if, instead of showing a trailer from some cliché-ridden comedy due out sometime in the fall, it held the answers to the secrets of the universe.

  Puzzled, McCade backed away. What had just happened here? Mere seconds ago he had been kissing her, and mercy, that had been one hell of a kiss.

  With his good looks and happy-go-lucky attitude, McCade was a stranger to female rejection. As the movie started he watched Sandy’s profile with a growing sense of unease. What if she simply didn’t want him? What if her feelings for him had been brotherly for so long, she couldn’t see him any other way? What if he couldn’t make her fall in love with him?

  He studied her face in the dim light, aching with need, and scared to death that he was running out of time.

  “I’m going to bed.” Sandy stood in the doorway to the living room. McCade sat on the couch, reading a trade magazine.

  He barely glanced up at her. “Okay.”

  “Good night.”

  He nodded, not taking his eyes from the magazine.

  Sandy climbed into her bed, desperately tired, but unable to fall asleep. She alternated between staring at the strip of light shining into her room from underneath the door and staring at the clock.

  A half hour passed. And then another. And another.

  At one-fifteen the light went off, but she could still hear him moving around out in the hallway. She heard his quiet footsteps stop directly outside of her door, and she held her breath.

  As she watched, the door quietly swung open.

  She sat up. “McCade?”

  He jumped and swore. “You damn near scared me to death!”

  “I scared you? You’re the one sneaking into my room, for God’s sake!”

  “I thought you were asleep,” he said from the darkness. “I was looking for my keys.”

  “Your keys?” Sandy leaned over and clicked on the light on her bedside table.

  “I changed my clothes in here yesterday and I think I put my keys somewhere….”

  McCade was wearing his motorcycle jacket and black leather pants that fit his long legs like a sexy second skin. But the night was warm—in the high seventies, at the least. If he wore leather, then wherever he was headed, he was planning to get there at high speed.