In a puzzled tone he said, “All right. If that’s what you prefer.” He named the restaurant where he would book a table, and Jeanie hung up, watching as her hand trembled on the pale blue phone.
At home, she dressed in a cowl-necked green silk dress, looked at herself in the full-length mirror in her bedroom, shook her head, and muttered, “No.” The dark brown velvet skirt and cream silk blouse she tried next weren’t right either. They joined the green silk dress on the bed. After three more attempts, she went back to the brown velvet skirt, but teamed it with a pale primrose angora sweater with satin and gold bead appliqué. Then she fixed earrings of gold and enamel to her lobes, and on impulse she couldn’t explain, added her three of the bangles to her right wrist, tamed her hair with two combs that matched the earrings. With a quick spritz of perfume, she was ready. She glanced out the window, noting that it was still raining, and added a good coat of hair spray to keep the kinks at bay.
Maybe, she thought in disgust ten minutes later, feeling the frizz start to puff out around her temples as she got into her car, she should consider moving to New Mexico or the Sahara desert. Would her hair then be sleek and manageable like Sharon’s? Oh, dammit, why did it have to matter so much how she looked for Max McKenzie? She was seeing him tonight for one reason only: to tell him about that job. This was not a date in the usual sense. At least, not on her part. She experienced a moment’s light-headedness as she realized that he had never said exactly why he had called her.
Did he think of it as a date?
And if he did, what did it mean to him?
And even more to the point, what did it mean to her?
Jeanie drove by the restaurant. Both sides of the street were filled with cars; every parking meter taken in a three-block radius. Slowly, she circled several blocks looking for a spot that was close to the restaurant so she wouldn’t have to walk too far in the rain, but her luck failed to improve. With a grimace, she drove into a parking garage and circled up, up and up some more, before finding a small slot she could just manage to shoehorn her car into.
Grabbing her keys and umbrella, she slid out of the car and looked around. Cold, damp, lonely garages were not among her favorite places and the sooner she got out of this one, the better. Quickly, she walked to the stairs, aware of the way the heels of her shoes rang out in the concrete cavern, saying, “Woman alone, woman alone, woman alone…”
“Oh, quit being paranoid!” she told herself as she headed for the red-painted metal stairwell door. She changed her pace, causing her heels to ring out, “Woman in charge! Woman in charge! Woman in charge!” instead. She laughed aloud at her own bravado and reached out to push open the stairwell door. Her laughter died into a rattling gasp that caught in her throat as a large, dirty hand closed over her wrist, jerking her away from the door. The man, nothing more than a large, dark shape from the shadows, tugged on her, pulling her off balance, swinging her into the deeper darkness at the side of a van. “Come on, girlie,” he said. “Don’t be scared. You and me can be friends.”
“Get away from me! You want my money, don’t you? Sure. Money. Take your hands off me. Let me go. I’ll give you money.”
His fingers tightened. He dragged her farther into the shadows. “Maybe I take your money. Maybe I take something else, too, huh?”
“No!” Jeanie wrenched her arm, nearly twisting free, stabbing out with her keys, but he caught her with his other hand, spinning her up against a wall. She screamed then, a loud, full-bodied yell that filled the echoing passages of the garage, reverberating off the concrete surfaces as she fought with the man, slowly losing to his superior strength but not giving even one inch willingly. She screamed again, the sound cut off by the slap of his filthy hand over her mouth, and then she was falling backward, her keys scraping down the side of his face and neck while darkness came up all around her. She gasped, fighting it—and the man.
Struggling, kicking back with her heels, she struck out, missing the shins she was aiming at and managing to lose one of her shoes. In desperation, she reached up with her left hand, her keys still clutched in her fingers, and raked the sharp point of a key down the man’s face again. He shouted, jerked his head back, and while he was shifting his grip on her, she sank her teeth into his filthy hand.
He gave another guttural shout and snatched his hand free, then shoved her back hard against the corner of the pillar. The world spun. Reeling her back toward him, he smacked her with the back of one hand.
Through the red-tinged darkness that swirled around her, she caught sight of an unshaven face with dirty teeth as headlights swept into the cavern of the garage and brakes squealed loudly. There was more shouting. Who was it, she, herself, someone else, the mugger, his accomplice?
She didn’t know; she knew only that the heavy weight of the mugger was off her. She slumped at the bottom of the pillar, her wobbly knees failing to support her. She huddled, hands over her face, listening as the sound of flesh meeting flesh came twice, three times, followed by the dull thud of a body slamming onto the floor. When hands touched her again, she fought frantically against their hold until the words the man was saying penetrated. “Jeanie, Jeanie, stop fighting me! It’s Max!”
“Max? Max! Oh, Max, hold me! Help me!”
He crouched there, holding her close, rocking her from side to side, one hand stroking her hair back from her face while she clung to him. “My God! You’re bleeding! I’ll call an ambulance.”
“No. No ambulance. It’s just a bump. Max, he was so dirty! He touched me. He was going to—”
“Hush, hush. It’s all right. He won’t hurt you again.” He put her shoe on, and said, “Come on, come up here. Let me help you.”
Warm hands lifted her. Warm arms cradled her again. A warm body provided shelter. She shook so, she could barely walk. She burrowed against his broad chest, feeling no surprise at all that Max McKenzie was there, just immense gratitude, safety, and security in his embrace. Just as in every dream she’d had about him, he was a hero.
“He said we could be … friends. He said he’d take my money. He said he’d take something else, too!”
“I know, but stop it. Stop reliving it. He didn’t do anything. He won’t. Can you move now? I want to get you into the car. I have to call the police and the concrete in this garage blocks the signal.” He put her tenderly on the front seat and let her go only long enough to dash around and get behind the wheel. Then, sliding his arm around her again, he pulled her close, oblivious to the grime on her hands and face and clothes, dirt she was just becoming aware of. He absorbed her shivering with his body as he reached the exit of the garage and placed his call, explained the situation curtly, and hung up. “I should go back up there and make sure he stays put if he comes to,” he told her, rubbing the palm of his hand gently over her icy cheek. “Will you be all right now?”
“Don’t leave me,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Please don’t go. If you have to go, take me with you.”
“All right. I’m backing up now. Back into the garage.” She closed her eyes tight as he swung the car in a one-eighty on the lower level then drove back to where she’d been attacked.
“He’s still here. The police are coming, Jeanie. He’ll be found guilty of assault and battery. He’ll be sent to prison. He won’t hurt you again. He won’t hurt anyone.”
Her fingers grappled with the lapels of his raincoat as she hung on tight and babbled. “I know G-g-grandma Margaret gave you to me as a hero for Sh-sharon, but she won’t mind if I hold onto you for just a few minutes. I was so scared, Max. So— I thought he was going to ra-ape me!”
He bent to give her a kiss of comfort. The moment his lips touched hers, though, their kiss escalated into something more.
“Ah, Jeanie, Jeanie,” he murmured, lifting his mouth from hers for a second before returning for more of the sweetness he had found there. “I knew it was going to be like this,” he told her moments later, his lips skimming over the sensitive skin of her throat. All
he could think of was that he had her in his arms at last, and she tasted as wonderful as he had known she would. She responded hotly, pressing herself to him, her mouth hungry, greedy, seeking. Small, passionate sounds emanated from her throat, like purring he could feel as well as hear when he pressed his lips to the racing pulse there.
“I’ve needed to touch you,” he said. “Needed to see you, kiss you. For the last week I’ve been going crazy, wanting to forget I’d ever met you, but still tasting you in my dreams.”
It was as if his words brought her out of an enchantment. She went stiff against him, her hands on his chest, her eyes wild. “No, stop!” she cried, pushing him away.
“What?” He stared down at her, blinking his eyes, her agitation dragging him abruptly out of his sensual daze. He remembered what had happened to her, realized where they were and why. “Lord, Jeanie!” He took his hands off her, felt sticky blood on one, saw it matting her hair and took a clean handkerchief from his breast pocket, pressing it to her wound. “I’m sorry! Oh, hell, that should never have happened. Forgive me!” He pounded his fist on the steering wheel as the sound of sirens grew louder. “Of all the things to do to you after what you’ve been through. Please believe me, I didn’t mean for it to happen.”
Jeanie found it difficult to speak, even more difficult to think. She ran a hand through her hair, felt a large, painful lump on her scalp above and behind her left ear. Her hand came away smeared with blood. She winced. It was a bitter reminder of what had gone before and how she had come to be in Max McKenzie’s arms.
“It’s okay. Okay. I know you didn’t mean it. It’s all right.” She was trembling again, but unsure what caused it; the fear or the unexpected passion. “It was as much my fault as it was yours. Maybe it was an excess of adrenaline in both of us.” Drawing in a ragged breath, she fumbled in her purse for a tissue and tried in vain to wipe some of the dirt from her face and hands, then attempted, with about as much success, to put her hair back in order. All the while Max kept pressure on the compress.
One of her combs was missing. Biting her lip, she looked over at the dim corner where her attacker had dragged her. He still lay there, a mere shape at the edge of the light. Her comb would be there, she knew. And there it would stay. Nothing would make her go back into that corner, not even once the police had come.
She shuddered convulsively again until Max turned her face away from the sight of her attacker, tucking her head back down against his shoulder. She didn’t try to escape his embrace. It felt too good. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m keeping an eye on him. He hasn’t moved. Don’t look at him. Don’t think about him.”
“No,” she said, lifting her head again, but not looking into the dark corner by that van. “Thank you. And I’m sorry for falling apart.”
“You had every right to fall apart,” he said reassuringly, stroking her cheek with the side of a curved finger. That, too, felt good. “Most women I know would have been having screaming hysterics complete with gallons of tears.”
“I seldom cry,” she said. “And just as seldom let myself get caught in a situation as dangerous as that one. The rain made parking the street anywhere near the restaurant impossible.”
“So I discovered too. I’m only glad I had to park up here as well and came along when I did. But when I realized it was you that creep had dragged into the corner, I came close to killing him.” Now, he was the one to shudder.
Putting her hand on his shoulder, she said, “No, Max, don’t you think about it either. It’s all over. You came in time. Remember that.”
“I’m trying to. But when I think—” He broke off as sirens echoed in the parking garage. “The police. And the paramedics. You stay in the car. I’ll send the medics to you.” He got out, only to lean back in the window a moment later. “The police will want to talk to you, you know, Jeanie. You’ll have to press charges.” He sounded almost apologetic. Jeanie nodded, steeling herself, and then a uniformed woman half lifted her from the car and onto a gurney.
“I’m going to drive you home,” Max said after her head had been cleaned up and sprayed with liquid bandage, which stung like crazy. But at least she hadn’t required stitches. The police had called an ambulance on general principles, they’d said, when Max used the word “mugging.” The paramedics had insisted on taking her into the ER.
“But my car—” she argued, only he hushed her, not touching her now but still giving her the feeling of being enfolded by warmth and safety.
“I’ll get someone to pick it up and deliver it to your house, if you’ll give me your keys,” he went on as he drove toward the street. “You won’t want to go back to the garage.”
She shuddered and shook her head. He reached out to take her hand, holding it warmly in his. “You’ll have to tell me your address,” he said, nosing the car out onto traffic.
It no longer seemed to matter that he was stranger. Maybe, she thought, because he really wasn’t one. He had been there when she needed him. He had held her in his arms. He had comforted her. He had given of himself to her. She told him her address.
“Thank you, Max,” she said as he pulled into the visitor parking area at the front of her building. “I’m sorry about dinner. Send me your dry-cleaning bill. You’re covered with blood.” She kept his hankie clutched in her left hand as she reached for the door handle with her right. “Good night.”
“Not on a bet” he said firmly. “I’ll see you in.”
She might have argued, but the clasp of his hand around her elbow made that seem futile, as did the grim set to his jaw. He took her key ring from her, detached what were clearly her car keys, pocketed them, then unlocked the door and stepped back for her to enter. Silently, they climbed five flights of stairs to her floor.
“Would you … would you like to come in?’ she asked.
He smiled and nodded. “I’d planned on it.”
He followed her inside and closed the door firmly. She turned from him as she unbuttoned her coat and dropped it across the back of a chair in the entry. It was filthy and would have to go to the cleaners in the morning. “I could fix us an omelet or a sandwich or something,” she offered tentatively.
He smiled again, his eyes crinkling up, glittering blue between his thick, dark lashes as he shrugged out of his tan trench coat. “That sounds great. Beating up bullies gives me an appetite. But why don’t you point me in the direction of the kitchen, and I’ll make the omelets while you get cleaned up. In case you haven’t looked, Ms. Leslie, you’re a wreck.”
Her pantyhose were torn, one of her knees, scraped raw in the scuffle, bore a taped on neatly white bandage, visible through a large tear in her velvet skirt, which was fit only for the garbage. Luckily, her sweater was unscathed. Her raincoat had caught all the blood from her head that hadn’t ended up on Max’s clothing.
“Thank you. I won’t be long,” she said, turning and moving too quickly across the living room. She staggered dizzily, clutched the doorframe, and pulled herself along the corridor. She was in the shower, standing under the hot spray, gingerly dabbing at the hair around her cut, when she remembered she hadn’t pointed him to the kitchen. No matter, though. He would find it. He was a resourceful man—as well as a hero.
“You hurt your hand,” she said, glancing up from the light, fluffy omelet he had set before her. He must have used at least four eggs for each one, but she didn’t mind. She’d smelled the delicious aroma of bacon, too, the minute she came out of the bathroom dressed in a warm, loose track suit. She reached across the table and touched the back of his hand near the bruised knuckles. “I’ll put some antiseptic on it.” She pushed her chair back and stood.
“It’ll be okay,” he said with a shrug, then spread honey thickly on a slice of toast. His hands moved deftly in spite of their size. A shiver ran down her spine as she remembered the gentle way they had touched her, the tenderness, the caring in his softly stroking palms while he’d comforted her, then the quivering tension in them when she’d re
sponded to his kisses.
“The skin is broken. The cuts might get infected. The paramedics should have looked at your wounds too,” Jeanie said, ignoring his protest. Seconds later, she returned from the bathroom with the same tube of ointment she had used her own scraped knee after her shower had soaked the bandage off. Gently, she smeared it on Max’s hand, then dabbed up the excess with a tissue.
“Thanks,” he said. “That feels better. It started to sting when I washed up before I started cooking.”
She sat back down and picked up her fork “You could have said something.”
“Uh-uh.” He shook his head, grinning. “Heroes don’t whine.” Then, when she was busy biting into a slice of toast, he said, “Who’s Sharon?”
Jeanie swallowed. “My sister. Why? Did she phone while I was in the shower?” There was alarm in her tone. “What did you tell her? Nothing about—”
“No, no! Relax. She didn’t phone. I just wondered who she was.”
“If she didn’t phone, how did you know about her?”
“You mentioned her.” He gave her a quick look, picked up a piece of bacon, bit it in half, and then said, “You told me I was supposed to be her hero, not yours. Something about your grandmother having said so.”
Jeanie stared. “I did? When?”
“After the attack. When we were in the car.”
“I don’t remember.” But suddenly she did—and felt a flush rise up her cheeks. What a damn-fool thing to have said!
He shrugged. “No? Never mind, then. I guess it wasn’t important.”
“No.” Jeanie shook her head. “No,” she said again. “Not important at all.” She forced herself to eat, but even while she dug into her omelet and toast, her stomach quivered and did a few double loops every time she looked up at him. His shoulders, under the pale blue of his shirt, were even broader than they had appeared under his trench coat and suit jacket. The coat and jacket now hung over the back of his chair, his top two buttons were undone, and his tie pulled loose, revealing a tuft of dark hair below the vee between his collarbones.
Dream Man Page 4
