Dream Man

by Judy Griffith Gill

  “You’re laughing at me,” he accused, looking rueful.

  “Only a little. I’m grateful for your consideration, Max. I want you to know that. And you’re right. I don’t have casual affairs. And I don’t want one. As wonderful as I know making love would be with you.” At least she didn’t think she wanted an affair, but after a few more kisses like the ones they’d shared, she could very easily change her mind.

  “Of course I’m right. And I don’t want any more casual affairs either. I’ve had enough of those to last a couple of lifetimes. I want permanency, marriage, and I want it with you. So, until you can agree to my terms, we’ll cool the heated embraces.”

  “I’m not going to agree to those terms. I don’t want marriage, Max. It would be all wrong for me under the circumstances.”

  “And those are?”

  “That I don’t love you. That you don’t love me. That you believe there’s no such thing as love. I happen to disagree. I think that it does exist, but since it doesn’t between us, then I won’t marry you.”

  “If you thought you loved me, would you?”

  She noticed he didn’t say “If I loved you,” or even “If you thought I loved you,” and it was a telling omission. He wasn’t kidding when he said he didn’t believe in love.

  “No, I wouldn’t. One-sided love would be as bad as no love at all.” That much she knew from her sister’s experience. Besides, she didn’t think she could bring herself to take that step even if they were both in love with each other. It just wasn’t in her plans for the future.

  “I’m glad you see it that way. One of the things I hate most is having to hurt women who think they’re in love with me, when there is no way in the world I can return that depth of emotion.”

  She nodded, wondering if her disappointment showed. What was the matter with her, anyway? Was she one of those horrible women who liked the idea of a man falling for her even when she wasn’t in love with him herself? She frowned slightly. She didn’t think she was one. But it still rankled that a man could want her as much as he claimed to and not profess some kind of affection. Although, she recalled, he had said that he cared, that he’d felt some kind of primitive, possessive anger when that man in the garage had touched her. Cared? What did that mean? To him? To her? She wished for wisdom she didn’t possess.

  “Fine,” she said, getting to her feet. “Then we’re in complete agreement. I’ll finish getting dinner ready. Help yourself to another drink and put more wood on the fire if it needs it.”

  She might know he was right, but it hurt nonetheless to have him say it. He wanted marriage; she did not. Impasse. And to him impasse meant no more wild kisses, no more fiery embraces, no chance that one of those embraces would carry them right over the edge and into the kind of relationship he no longer wanted with a woman unless he had her tied up in bonds so tight there’d be no escaping. So, she would feed him his dinner, wish him a friendly good night, and send him on his way. From this moment on their relationship would be one of casual business acquaintances, and that, she decided, vigorously stirring noodles that should have been treated gently, was going to be that.

  “Right,” she said briskly after the dinner dishes had been cleared away from the small, gate-leg table in the living room. She wished she hadn’t had that second glass of wine. It made it more difficult to force her mind to business. “You brought the letter for my client?”

  “Yes.” He reached into the inside breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a neatly folded paper. “I’ll read it for you.”

  “No!” She felt herself flush as she yelped out the word, but some traitorous part of her curled and twisted pleasurably at the thought of actually hearing his voice read the words. She wouldn’t be able to stand it. “That won’t be necessary,” she added quickly. “As long as it’s handwritten and you’ve followed the guidelines set out by the client, I’m certain it’ll be fine. I’ll just send it out in the morning.” She reached out her hand for it, but he withheld it.

  “You might not be able to read my writing.”

  “If I can’t, then the client won’t be able to either,” she said with dismay. “Your writing can’t be that bad.”

  “Wanna bet? See for yourself.”

  She groaned as she tried to decipher his impossible scribble. It was illegible. “Max, you have to do better than this! Didn’t you learn the McLean’s Method of writing in school? I thought it was an absolute in every curriculum in the entire country.”

  “I did, but my mind works faster than my fingers can go, so when I write, I scribble. The only person who can read it is Freda.”

  Jeanie felt her eyes widen as the thought crossed her mind that if that were the case, then Freda had definitely read the first letter Max had sent. “Oh, my Lord…” she whispered.

  He laughed, reading her mind again. “No, she didn’t type that one for me. I can type, you know. I do all of my work directly on my computer. Freda just guards my gates and does the research and scut work.”

  She breathed a sigh of relief. “Well, you’re just going to have to slow down your mind as well as your hand and do this letter over again.”

  She walked to the desk in the corner of the living room, pulling out a drawer and laying a pad of notepaper on top with a pen. “Here, sit down. It won’t take you long, I’m sure.”

  “No,” he said cheerfully, “not long at all. Well, maybe longer than usual, because I’ll have to try to write carefully and slowly and legibly. But you can put up with my presence another hour or so, can’t you?”

  She agreed that she could. “I’ll do the dishes while you work.”

  “No. No, stay and keep me company. It’ll go easier if I can look up and see your face now and then.” He smiled that smile she could never turn away from. “Inspiration, Jeanie.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ll need it. After all, you’re a professional, aren’t you? Don’t words just come naturally to your mind?”

  His smile turned into a grin. “Not always. And certain inspiration does have its place. So sit where I can see you. Please?”

  She told herself she’d do it because she wanted the damned letter written. She could load the dishwasher later, just as she’d intended all along. She hated people who insisted on cleaning up their kitchens while their guests languished in the living room or felt obliged to help.

  Max sat down, angled the paper before him, and picked up the pen. For the first time she noticed he was left-handed and wondered why she hadn’t seen it before. After all, they’d shared two lunches and a late night snack, plus dinner. Probably during those times she’d been too busy trying to keep her mind from skittering off on little side trips into fantasyland. And at dinner all she’d been aware of was the way his eyes had shone in the light of the candles she’d been rash enough to set on the table between them.

  “ ‘Dearest,’ ” he said aloud as he wrote. “ ‘Tonight was the most wonderful evening I’ve spent. To be with you, to touch you, kiss you, look into your eyes through the gleam of candlelight and see the light reflected there, all silver and shining, thrilled me …’ ” He looked up. “Thrilled me how? What do you think?”

  “You’re writing this, not me.” Jeanie leafed through a magazine, pretending to read. So he’d noticed her eyes through the candlelight had he?

  “ ‘…thrilled me right through to my soul. The smoky gray …’ Oops! Jeanie, will it be okay if I have to scratch things out? I’ll have to totally obliterate that. I meant to write ‘velvety brown’, like the guy said, but I was getting carried away and …”

  “Go ahead. Scratch things out if you have to. Maybe it’ll make the damned letter look more spontaneous.”

  He looked up sharply at her tone. “Whew! What a grouch. You tired? Would you like me to take this home and finish it? I could have it in your office by nine.”

  “No. It’s okay.” She realized she had sounded churlish, and it wasn’t fair. After all, he was trying to do a job to please one of her clients. I
t was good for her business for him to do the job properly. “Just go ahead and write. But do you have to read it out loud as you’re doing it?”

  “It helps to slow me down, but I won’t if it … bothers you,” he said with a smile that was too knowing.

  “I’m trying to read a very interesting article is all,” she said, hoping he wouldn’t ask what the article was about. How could she explain a sudden vital desire to know more about the dry-land windsurfing simulator being used to train Olympic-class sailboard racers?

  “I’ll speak quietly,” he promised, and she strained to hear his murmured words.

  “ ‘How many years we’ve wasted, you and I, never knowing the’ … um, let’s see— Hell! What did I write there? I can’t even read my own writing half the time. M … A … G— Ah, got it! ‘magic we could create together.’ Yeah, that’s it. Magic’s the term, all right. ‘But now that we know, we’ll waste no more. I’ll come to you, my angel, sweep you into my arms and slowly, so very slowly, strip away all the physical barriers that separate us. I’ll enfold you in my arms, press my hungry mouth to your breasts. You’ll wrap your silken thighs around my hips, your arms about my neck, and as the heat builds between us, we’ll begin a fantastic climb, higher and higher. We’ll gaze at each other until our sight blurs, our hearing is filled with only the rush of each other’s breathing, and our every sense is captured by the passion flaring between us, building to such heights it can do nothing but burst in a shower of golden lights and fanfare of blaring trumpets. And then, slowly, slowly, we’ll begin again and—’ ”

  “Dammit, Max! Stop it! That’s not a love letter. It’s a script for an obscene phone call! What happened to romantic walks in the moonlight, holding hands, and comparing dreams? What about long talks by the fireside? Can’t you write about leisurely dinners in fine restaurants with unobtrusive waiters and strolling violinists? Read the guidelines, for heaven’s sake!”

  “He doesn’t say they’ve actually done any of those things, just that he’d like to do them with her. I haven’t got to that part yet, is all. I’m embellishing as he suggested, adding things I’d like to do with a woman.” His direct gaze told her exactly with which woman he’d like to do those things.

  “Well, that’s enough! Go home! Finish the wretched thing in your own place. Write it on your computer, then copy it out longhand. Just remember to do it slowly and neatly and have it on my desk by nine in the morning.”

  “Yeah. I think that’d be best.” He got to his feet, folded the original and his new copy and slid them into his breast pocket then pulled her to her feet. “At this rate, it might take me all night to finish, and I can see you’re really tired. You need to get to bed.”

  She tugged her hand out of his warm clasp and stepped away from him. She didn’t even want to think about the word bed with him still in her apartment.

  “Fine,” she said. “Good night.”

  “Yup,” he said, heading to the door. “You too.” He picked up his coat and shrugged into it.

  “Sleep tight,” he said, and left.

  “Not even a little kiss, Grandma Margaret. Not even a tiny peck on the cheek, on the forehead, not even a handshake, for heaven’s sake. Oh, I know he’s right to cool it, but did he have to cool it so fast? Put it into such a damned deep freeze that there can’t even be a little bit of warmth between us again? Are you doing your job, or not?”

  Suddenly, to her shock, Jeanie burst into tears of rage and frustration and good, old-fashioned hurt feelings. “What am I going to do, Grandma? I think I’m falling in love with the man.” Through the sounds of her own crying, she heard the gentle tinkle of golden bangles, but found very little comfort in the musical tones.

  What she wanted was the loud, sweet fanfare of a golden trumpet heralding some kind of a miracle.

  Chapter Seven

  MAX WAS JUST COMING OUT of the elevator at eight forty-five the next morning as Jeanie opened the door from the stairwell. They both stopped and stared at each other, she wondering if her newly discovered love would show. She loved him and hated herself for that weakness. If he knew, if he pitied her, she couldn’t stand it. Then slowly he smiled, and she realized that there was no flashing neon sign hanging over her head reading: Here stands another stupid woman who has fallen in love with Max McKenzie. “Hi,” he said. “Do you always take the stairs?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even in your apartment? All the way to the fifth floor?”

  “As I told you before. Exercise is good for the body.”

  He touched her hair, careful not to muss its neat appearance, then let his caress trail down over her cheek. She stood absolutely still, hoping not to give away her ready response to his touch. “Maybe it’s good for your body but mine, after a lousy night, needs all the help it can get. I didn’t sleep much after I left you.”

  She unlocked her outer office door, turned on the lights, and opened the door to her private office. “I didn’t, either. Too much coffee, I guess.”

  “On you, it doesn’t show.”

  “Thanks.” She opened a drawer and dropped her purse inside. “You lie nicely, Mr. McKenzie.”

  “It wasn’t coffee that kept me awake. It was guilt.”

  She turned and looked at him. He knew? “Guilt? Over what?”

  “Over what I did. With that letter. It wasn’t very nice. I apologize.”

  “What you did?”

  “I was deliberately teasing you. Trying to make you change your mind. Using sex to get my way.” He swallowed hard, reached into his pocket, and handed her a sheaf of papers. “I did the letter correctly, plus a few more just to keep a couple of days ahead of the game. Read them if you like. There’s nothing… objectionable in them.”

  She knew she couldn’t bear to read them. She knew if she did, she’d fall apart inside, and beg him to at least try to love her. “I trust you.” She took them and, without even glancing at them, stuffed them into an envelope already addressed to the box number they were meant for. Then she sealed it and laid it down again.

  “Thank you, Max. It was good of you to get them here so early. I’m sure you have a lot to do and so d—” She broke off and jerked around at the sound of the sharp ring of the phone on her desk. “Excuse me. That’s my private line.”

  He watched as she listened. He could make out hysterical feminine tones but not the words. As Jeanie’s face whitened and she swayed, he leapt forward and shoved her chair under her, forcing her to sit. He kept his hands tightly on her shoulders, standing behind her, listening to her end of the conversation.

  “He never got there? Sharon, it’s just across the field and a mile along the trail! I know, I know. I’m sorry. Of course you’ve been telling yourself that ever since you heard. No! Listen. It is not your fault! He’s nearly ten years old, and he’s walked to Mark’s house hundreds of times, spent the night there hundreds of times. You had no way of knowing that this once Mark’s mother didn’t know the boys’ plans. Sharon, please! Please stop saying it’s your fault! Okay, okay, I’d blame myself too. I know. I’m on my way. We’ll find him, Sharon. I know it’s crazy to say don’t worry, because I’m worried as hell myself, but I’m coming and we’ll find him. You just hang onto Roxy and wait for me. I’ll be with you as fast as I can get there. In the meantime, tell the police every little thing you can think of. Check with all his other friends, and try to stay calm for Roxy’s sake. I love you, Sharon. I’m coming.”

  She slammed the phone down and stood up. Shrugging off Max’s hands, she looked blindly around her office as if not knowing what she needed. She shook her head. “Jason’s missing. Sharon said he asked if he could spend the night with a friend. When he didn’t show up at school this morning, the principal phoned to see where he was. They always do that if the parents don’t call to say the child won’t be in class, and Sharon called Mark’s mom who said she hadn’t seen him and that Mark hadn’t said Jason was coming. Mark hasn’t seen him since yesterday at school! He’s been out all night
!”

  Jeanie broke down, buried her face in her hands and moaned, “Oh, Lord, he’s only ten and it’s so cold at night!”

  She stared distractedly around. “The police have started a search. I have to go help. Where are my car keys?”

  Max opened the drawer and took out her purse. He slid the strap over her shoulder and wrapped an arm around her. Gently, he steered her into the outer office where Cindy was just turning on her computer. “There are some papers on Ms. Leslie’s desk. Get them out right away, will you? There’s a family emergency. Cancel all her appointments until further notice. She’ll be in touch when she can. You can hold down the fort can’t you?”

  “Yes, sir. I sure can. Can I help?”

  “No. I’ll look after Ms. Leslie. You look after the office.”

  He shoved Jeanie through the elevator doors even though she balked. “No! The stairs! Please, I can’t …” But it was too late. The doors slid shut. She stood rigid, beads of sweat breaking out on her face, her fists clenched at her sides, her eyes wide, her breathing shallow and panicked. Max stared at her.

  “You’re claustrophobic! So that explains your stair fetish.”

  She couldn’t reply, only stared at the numbers as they slowly went from three to two to one until the doors finally hissed open. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m sorry to have put you through that on top of everything else. But come on, that ordeal’s over now. My car’s right out here.”

  “No! I’ll take mine. This isn’t your—”

  “Hush.” He shoved open the main doors of the building, opened the passenger side of his car, and put her on the seat. In very few long strides, he was around, behind the wheel, and pulling away from the curb, “Your problems are my problems, Jeanie. That’s the way it is.” He drove quickly, but always in control. In no time at all they were in front of her apartment building. “Inside,” he said briskly. “Get into warm clothes, strong shoes, whatever else you’ll need to join in the search.”