Sleeping Beauty

by Dallas Schulze

  Until last night

  Last night she'd finally gotten a glimpse of what all the shouting was about. And it had to happen with a man who was going to be gone in a matter of days. Was already gone, for all she knew. David could have gotten the motorcycle fixed, or Neill

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  could have caught a ride with someone, or even hitchhiked From some of the things he'd said at lunch, it was clear he'd traveled a lot. It didn't seem likely that a man who'd been to Paris and Budapest and who knew where else would find much to interest him in Loving, Indiana.

  Anne both underestimated her own appeal and overestimated life on the road. Neill had already decided that he'd had enough of the latter, but the foraier...the former definitely had some potential. Being a man, he didn't spend as much time analyzing those moments in his motel room as Anne did, but, unlike Anne, he didn't even bother telling himself that it had been *'just a kiss." He was thirty-five years old, more than passably good-looking, and, also unlike Anne, he'd had more than a few close encounters with lust. But not since his hormone-driven teenage days had a single kiss left him with barely a fingernail hold on his self-control.

  The unexpected strength of his reaction caught him off guard, left him aching and aroused his curiosity, which his mother had often told him was his besetting sin and sure to get him in trouble one day. He'd lain awake nearly as long as Anne had.

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  hands behind his head, his eyes on the opposite wall, where he could just make out the faint gleam of Bela Lugosi's teeth, and considered the possibility that his mother might be right. Certainly a cautious man might have made arrangements to beat a hasty retreat. But cautious men led such boring lives, and he was enough of a fatalist to feel compelled to stick around and see what happened.

  Despite the fact that it was late when he finally went to sleep, Neill woke early. After one look at the clock, he closed his eyes again and pulled the pillow over his head. He'd never been a morning person, and he had no desire to start now. But after fifteen minutes it was obvious that, like it or not, he was awake. Cursing halfheartedly, he crawled out of bed. Maybe it was because he was in the middle of farm country, he thought as he stumbled over to the kitchenette to start water boiling for coffee. Probably some undiscovered neurotoxin drifting in from the cornfields, enforcing farmers' hours on an unsuspecting citizenry.

  By the time he'd splashed water on his face, finger-combed his hair and taken his first sip of scalding instant coffee, he was resigned to being awake, if not particularly happy about it. He thought about turning on the TV to watch one of the morning

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  news shows but didn't reach for the remote. He wasn't in the mood to hear a randown of the latest wars, murders and political misdoings. Instead, he flipped open the laptop and began skinmiing the pages he'd written the night before, half expecting to find them absolute trash.

  The next time he looked up, there was an unappetizing oily film floating on top of the nearly untouched coffee in the cup next to him. His shoulders and neck ached from hunching over the keyboard, and he had to blink several times before he could focus his eyes on the clock next to the bed. It was almost eleven, which would account for the hollow where his stomach used to be.

  Groaning, he shoved his chair back from the table and stood up. God, he couldn't ever remember working like this—with the words pouring out of him nearly as fast as he could type. The story was still barely begun, but it was starting to take shape both in his mind and on the page. He still didn't know where it was going or what he would do with it when it got there, but the story was there, and he didn't think it was going to go away until he'd given it a voice.

  The words tugged at him, tempting him to continue, but his head was buzzing a little from the

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  long hours of concentration, and his stomach was sending up polite enquiries about the condition of his throat. Besides, he'd had plans for lunch, he remembered.

  By lunchtime, Anne had managed to accomplish roughly half as much as she usually did. As a bonus, she'd also snagged her hose on the comer of her desk, broken a fingemail and absentmindedly entered the same report into the computer twice, under two different names.

  **Having one of those mornings?" Marge Lancaster stopped next to her desk and gave her a sympathetic look.

  **Is it still morning? Are you sure it isn't time to go home?" Anne asked ruefully.

  **Sorry." Marge leaned one plump hip against Anne's desk, easing the weight on her feet. Her coms were killing her, and new shoes weren't helping any, though they were pretty as all get out, she thought, tilting her head slightly to admire the navy pumps with their pretty blue-and-white bows.

  *'New shoes?" Anne asked, following the older woman's gaze.

  **Got them mail order last week." Marge said, smiling down at them.

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  **They're very pretty/'

  **Aren't ihey?'' Marge sighed and flexed her toes, barely restraining a wince. **Of course, they're uncomfortable as the dickens, but I never could resist a pretty pair of shoes. At my age, you'd think conmion sense would overrule vanity, but it doesn't work that way. Harold and I have been manied forty years, come December and, trath to tell, I could probably wear a couple of cow pies on my feet and he wouldn't notice but for the smell, so I can't pretend I torture myself to give him pleasure."

  Anne laughed. When she came to work at the bank. Marge had been the one to show her the ropes. Officially, she was secretary to the president, but everyone, from the janitor to the president him-self, knew she could just as easily have run the place herself. She was on the far side of fifty, frankly gray, plump, matronly, with a heart of gold and a mind like a steel trap.

  **Oh, now if that doesn't make me wish I was thirty years younger," Marge said with a sigh, looking toward the front of the bank.

  Anne turned to follow her gaze and felt her heart thud painftiUy against her breastbone. Neill was standing near the glass doors, talking to the guard.

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  She'd spent the entke morning and most of the night trying to convince herself that she'd exaggerated his looks, exaggerated her attraction to him and, most of all, exaggerated that kiss. Given another week or two, she might even have believed herself, and then he walked in and just looking at him scattered all her calm, logical thoughts to hell and gone.

  *'Now there's a man I wouldn't mind offering a loan," Marge said, watching Neill's progress across the bank. After that first glance, Anne didn't look. She couldn't.

  *1 think he's coming ttiis way." Marge sounded surprised and curious. She straightened away from Anne's desk, sUding her feet back into her shoes as Neill stopped at the low wooden railing that separated the bank offices from the main lobby. *'Can I help you?"

  *1 was hoping to talk to Anne Moore." There was a questioning note in his voice, and Anne realized that, between the computer monitor and Marge's somewhat substantial figure, he couldn't see her. For a spUt second, sheer nerves had her thinking about ducking under her desk, but, considering the way her day had been going, she probably wouldn't fit.

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  **Of course. She*s right here.'* Marge turned, her eyes bright with questions Anne pretended not to see. Since Marge was perfectly capable of asking them out loud, it seemed like divine providence when Marge's phone began to ring and she went— reluctandy—^to answer it, leaving Anne more or less alone with Neill, unless you wanted to count the three tellers and half a dozen customers standing in plain sight behind him, which Anne didn't, because she'd forgotten their existence.

  Neill stood on the other side of the railing, smiling at her, and if a tuba-playing brontosaurus had marched through the bank, she wouldn't have noticed. He was wearing jeans again—probably all he had with him, she thought. But when a man looked as wickedly goo
d in faded denim as Neill Devlin did, he didn't need anything else. Another T-shirt—^this one sky blue—clung to the muscled width of his chest Looking at him, Anne couldn't help but remember the feel of those muscles under her hands, and the memory made her knees feel a little weak.

  She would have been horrified to know how clearly Neill read her thoughts, gratified to know that he had to slide his hands in his pockets as protection against the urge to step over the railing

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  and drag her out from behind her desk and kiss her senseless. Slowly, he reminded himself. He'd made up his mind to take this slowly. He didn't know what they had beyond a physical attraction like nothing he'd ever experienced, but whatever it was, he'd made up his mind that he wasn't going to rush things.

  So he smiled and tried not to groan when she flicked her tongue nervously over her lower lip.

  **How do you feel about picnics?"

  *'Picnics?" Anne repeated blankly. She'd spent more time than she cared to admit imagining what their next encounter might be like, picturing herself acting with a sophistication she felt had been sorely lacking in their previous encounters, but none of the scenarios she'd imagined had involved him asking her opinion of picnics. **I...I like them just fine."

  **Are you busy for lunch?"

  Anne felt her uncertainties dissolving beneath the warmth of his smile. She suddenly felt foolish for spending so much time analyzing something that another woman would have taken in stride. Last night he'd kissed her. Today he was asking her to have lunch with him. It was a perfectly nor-

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  mal progression of events. It was only her own inexperience that had turned it into something else.

  ''No plans/* she said, smiling up at him. **I was just sitting here thinking how much Fd like to go on a picnic."

  *'And they say there's no such thing as coincidence.'' He flicked a glance at the big round clock that hung on the back wall of the bank. ' 'How soon can you blow this joint?''

  Anne resisted the urge to get up and walk out the door with him. No one would object if she took her lunch hour early, but there would be questions, explanations. Not that there wouldn't be anyway. Already she could feel Marge's eyes boring a hole in her back.

  "Half an hour?"

  "Perfect." Smiling, Neill straightened away from the railing. "I'll go see what I can do about putting together something to eat"

  "Dorothy seemed to approve of the picnic idea," Neill said as he spread a blanket on the grass beneath the shade of an ancient maple. "She said Humphrey Bogart took Greta Garbo on a picnic in Mogambo.'' He frowned and shook his head as he sat down. "Or maybe it was Clarke Gable and Ginger Rogers in Duck Soup.''

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  **I think you've got your movies and actors mixed up. A lot." Anne sank down on the blanket, curling her legs beneath her, grateful that she was wearing a full skirt. '^Wasn't Duck Soup a Marx Brothers movie?''

  "Then maybe Gable was taking Groucho on a picnic/' Neill said, unconcerned. He glanced at her, his eyes gleaming with laughter. **Wasn't that an advertisement campaign—Gable's back and Groucho's got him?"

  *1 think that was Garson's got him."

  **Garson. Groucho." Neill shrugged. **Who can tell the difference?"

  *l'm pretty sure Groucho was the one with the mustache."

  There was a small bronze plaque near the park's entrance that said it had been created to honor those who had died in World War H, followed by a Ust of names—^husbands, sons and fathers who hadn't come home. The peaceful sweep of sun-warmed grass and spreading shade trees was worlds away from the sights and sounds of battle, which was probably the point, Neill thought idly.

  In the middle of the week, they had the park almost to themselves. A few children played in the

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  sand near the swings, and, though he couldn't see the players, Neill could hear the ragged rhythm of a basketball hittmg concrete. There was a peace-fulness here that seeped bone deep. This was what he'd been looking for when he left Seatde, Neill thought This sense of time not just standing still, but ceasing to exist.

  They'd eaten sandwiches and potato salad, talking as easily as if they'd know each other for years rather than a handful of days. He'd learned that she liked old movies, mystery novels and yellow roses. She hated doing laundry, had nearly flimked math in high school and considered the pocket calculator one of man's greatest inventions, rivaled only by the CD player ''because, sooner or later, tapes are bound to be eaten by a tape player." They shared a fondness for old rock and roll but divided sharply on the question of country music, with Neill claiming that, other than opera, it was the only musical medium that encouraged great storytelling and Anne wrinkling her nose at the thought of twanging guitars and nasal laments about cheating wives and love gone sour.

  **You obviously haven't listened to country music in the last twenty years," Neill told her sternly and she conceded that it had been a while. From

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  music^ the talk shifted to authors they both admired. By tiie time they'd agreed that Hemingway was vastly overrated and that neither of them liked horror novels, the sandwiches were gone and the crumpled containers had been disposed of.

  Pleasantly fall and vaguely somnolent, Neill was relieved that she didn't feel the need to break the comfortable silence that fell between them. Most people viewed silence as either a threat or a challenge.

  But Anne sat across from him, leaning back on her hands, her legs stretched out in front of her, head tilted back and eyes closed. The innocent sensuality of the pose tied NeiU's stomach in knots. He wanted to reach out and bury his hand in the honey-colored hair that spilled down her back, wanted to nibble his way down the delicate arch of her throat. He didn't know what it was about her that made him want her like this. It wasn't as if she dressed to drive a man wild. The sunshine-colored short-sleeved dress, with its frill skirt and V-neckline, was hardly designed with seduction in mind, but his fingers itched with the urge to unfasten the prim little row of buttons that marched from neckline to hem.

  If he leaned over and kissed her now, would she

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  respond the way she had last night, all trembling arousal and uncertain response? And what was she wearing under that prim little dress? Silk and lace, or plain cotton?

  He wasn't aware of moving until he felt his hand slide into that thick fall of hair, cupping the back of her head. Anne didn't start but only opened her eyes slowly, as if she'd been expecting him, waiting for hinL

  *1 just have to see if I imagined it," he whispered.

  ^'Imagined what?"

  **The way you taste." The last word was murmured against her mouth.

  It was different this time, Anne thought. Last night she'd been startled, a little frightened and completely unprepared for the wave of heat that rolled through her when he touched her. Since then, she'd spent a lot of time remembering, imagining, hoping. And now, here it was happening again, only better. So much better.

  With a sigh, she opened her mouth to him, her tongue coming up to fence with his. He tasted of root beer and smelled of soap and aftershave. When she felt his arm come around her back, lifting her closer, she brought her arms up to circle his neck.

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  indulging the urge to slide her fingers into his hair. It felt like warm black silk, she thought, and then whimpered softly as his teeth scraped along her bottom lip.

  It was like the first time, Neill thought, dazed by the power and speed of it. One touch, one kiss, and he wanted so much more. And he could have it, he knew. He could have her. K they were alone, he could sUde all those tantalizing buttons loose and take what she was so sweetly offering.

  But they weren't alone, and it was too soon, even if it felt like he'd been wanting her forever. She would have regrets. He didn't question that knowledge but accepted it, just as he'd accepted the need to see her agai
n, to touch her again. He had time, he reminded himself. He wasn't going anywhere until he'd figured out this...whatever it was between them.

  Reluctantly, he eased back until he was looking down at her. She opened her eyes so slowly that they might have been weighted and stared at him with a look of staggered arousal that tested his already shaky control to the limits.

  **rd better get you back," he said, indulging the need to taste the delicate arch of her throat

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  **Back where?" she whispered, her senses swimming with the feel of him, the taste of him.

  "To work." He touched the tip of his tongue to the pulse that beat at the base of her throat and felt it jump.

  **Work." Anne struggled with the concept. She was nearly sure that the word meant something to her, but, at the moment, she couldn't seem to recall what.

  **The bank." He pressed a quick, hard kiss on her mouth before easing away. '*Your job, remember?"

  **Yes." It seemed the appropriate answer, but the truth was that she could barely remember her own name. Anne lifted an unsteady hand to smooth her hair as she tried to grab hold of her spinning thoughts. She was grateful when Neill stood and, picking up the bag that held the remnants of their meal, carried it to the nearest trash can. It was impossible to think with him so close, barely possible to think when he wasn't.

  A kiss, she reminded herself. Still just a kiss. This sort of thing happened every day, all over the world. People kissed each other and their brains continued to function. It seemed incredible, but she was nearly sure it could be done.

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