“Pardon?”
“Your work?”
“Engineer. A mechanical engineer-I spend most of my day out in the field, as you can see.” He motioned to his dusty work boots. “Laughlin’s the company; they’re busy moving into Greenville at the moment. If the building ever does get done, I hope to have a little time to put up a house. I’ve rented this apartment for six months, but I hope to move into my own place before then. You?”
“Um.” She swallowed the last morsel of food, feeling just slightly unnerved by his lazy stare. Old defenses were slipping, as he kept his eyes on her face, but she knew darn well she didn’t have that fascinating a nose. “I work for Love Lace. Lingerie.” Greer looked him straight in the eye, administering a little private test of her own.
“Doing…?”
Greer set aside the aluminum tray and twined her hands loosely around her knees, relaxing. He’d passed her tiny test by not indulging in sexual innuendo about her job. “I’m their ad psychologist. If you’ve never heard of that job before, it’s probably because my boss invented it. Grant hired me-directly out of college with an extremely useless degree in psych-to keep the marketing and design staff from killing each other. Since his wife’s our head designer, he had a vested interest in her survival.”
“I can understand that.”
“I’m glad you can. I don’t always. Basically, the lingerie industry’s gone boom; Grant wants to stay in for the count, and he needed an impartial woman’s viewpoint to back up his own business expertise. His wife wants to make French panties; the marketing staff says Jockey-type shorts for women are in. Somebody’s got to study the public to psyche out what they really want to buy. For instance, a man can stare at a Playboy spread of a woman in a satin G-string, but as to whether or not he’ll actually buy one for his wife- What’s wrong?” Greer asked cheerfully.
“Nothing.” He was choking mildly.
And Greer knew exactly what was wrong. A big ego wasn’t her problem, and he’d given her no reason to think he was going to come on to her. She’d just wanted to make sure that didn’t happen, and nothing took the predatory gleam out of a man’s eyes quicker than an encounter with a commonsense woman who talked about unmentionables the way other people talked about toothpaste.
“You didn’t mention your name,” she said lightly, once he’d recovered.
“Ryan McCullough.”
The name suited him. McCullough had the flavor of Scottish highlands and fresh air and the wild, rocky sea coast. And he had the look of a man who would seek out man-against-environment-type challenges. The stereotype of the plodding engineer didn’t fit him at all, arousing her curiosity.
Greer kept her eyes carefully averted from his work boots, praying he wouldn’t notice that Truce had settled at his feet and was trying to pull out the shoelaces. “You’re from…?”
“Maine, originally.” He added abruptly, “How long have you been getting those phone calls?”
“Too long, but honestly, they’re nothing to worry about.” Greer glanced at her watch, hardly believing that nearly an hour had passed. Unfortunately, anxiety attacks always made her gregarious, but that choked-up irrational fear was gone now. Long gone, thanks to one Ryan McCullough, and she’d certainly been bending his ear long enough. She stood up and stretched. “If I’d known you were moving in, I would have brought over a dinner. As it is, tonight was rather slim pickings-”
The phone rang in her apartment, a distant jangle through walls and closed doors. Greer pivoted toward the sound, color draining from her face. Her friendly chatter ceased instantly, sliced off rapidly as if with a knife blade. When the phone rang again, her fingers curled helplessly at her sides.
Firm hands suddenly closed on her upper arms from behind. “Dammit. Now, how the hell often does that happen?”
Her fingers fluttered in the air. She held her breath when the phone rang a third time. Ryan’s firm hands released her shoulders; he swept in front of her toward the door. “Where’s your phone?” he demanded brusquely.
“Pardon?” Tiny pinpricks of moisture beaded on her forehead. She stared wildly at Ryan as the phone jangled a fourth time. Fear was the strangest emotion. A stupid, stupid emotion. There’d been no threat of harm from the heavy breather. It was all in her head, this insidious growing fear of the stranger out there in the city watching her, a man who always seemed to know when she was alone, a man who’d gone to a lot of trouble to learn her new unlisted number almost as soon as she’d had the old one changed. Why had he chosen her? What could she possibly have done to deserve this? What did he want from her?
“There isn’t any reason to be frightened,” she said haltingly. “I know that. It’s totally ridiculous to get so upset…”
“Stay there.” Ryan pushed open her door and disappeared while she stood there. The phone rang once more and then stopped. Very shortly after that, one Ryan McCullough leaned against her open doorway, one leg lazily hooked forward and a definitely determined look to his mouth that she hadn’t noticed before. His eyes bored into hers and just wouldn’t let go. His tone, by contrast, was almost ridiculously gentle. “Didn’t you just offer me a dinner?”
“Did I? Was there-” she hesitated “-anyone on the line?”
“They’d hung up.”
Greer gathered up Truce.
“Is the offer of dinner still open?”
Greer stared at him blankly, almost certain that she’d specifically not offered him dinner. “I…sure.” She couldn’t think. Distractedly, she watched him take the plate and then the cat from her arms.
When Ryan closed her apartment door after they’d entered, she noted vaguely that he locked it.
Chapter Two
“Do you have any wine?” Ryan inquired.
“Wine,” Greer echoed. She stared at him blankly until the word finally registered in her fogged brain, and then wandered toward the kitchen and crouched down by the cupboard near the stove. One Christmas, someone had given her a lovely wine rack; the lone bottle resting on its inexpensive side was dusty.
She wiped it clean, searched for a corkscrew, opened the bottle and groped for a wineglass. Her movements were mechanical, her mind functioning at half power. Fear was an intangible thing. It hit in waves, like the ebb and flow of a tide, engulfing her one minute, releasing her the next.
If only she could put a face to The Breather or understand what she could possibly have done to make anyone so obsessively harass her…but she could find nothing, no clue to help her answer that why. She was well liked, successful in her work, had family and friends who loved her. After her divorce, she’d had a rough time, but her world was secure now. Secure, stable, normal-all were qualities she valued. And every single time the phone rang, she felt as if she’d been cut loose from her moorings, as if she were floundering with nothing to hold on to. It had to stop.
Turning, she held a glass of wine out to Ryan, but found he couldn’t very well take it. Both his hands were busy filling a pan with water. “What on earth are you doing?”
“Cooking noodles for tuna casserole. You don’t mind if I putter around a little in your kitchen, do you? Since you’ve already had your dinner?”
“I…no.” Since he had half the ingredients already laid out on her counter, there seemed little else she could say. Her new neighbor had a slight tendency to mow down people in his way. Within seconds, she found herself sitting at the kitchen table with the wineglass in her hand. Rather bewildered, she sipped from it.
Ryan grinned. By the time she took another sip of wine, her hands had stopped trembling. Satisfied, he turned back to the stove. He hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, but he wasn’t absolutely sure whether he was hungrier for dinner or for the lady in the white cotton robe.
On sight he’d liked her bubbling warmth, her easy humor, the natural confidence that was part of her. That appeal had been strengthened when she’d unconsciously run full tilt into his protective instincts. His new neighbor clearly didn’t approach life
via logical, rational thought patterns. If she did, she’d never have let a stranger into her kitchen. And she certainly wouldn’t still be sitting in front of him in that robe.
Ryan was beginning to be very fond of that robe.
The lapels opened just slightly when she moved, revealing a shadow of satin-soft breasts and the promise of more. And earlier, when she walked in, the fabric had parted to reveal slim, long legs to midthigh, give or take the interim covering of a slip. Satin didn’t hide much anyway, and the absolutely hideous color of her slip fascinated him.
Within seconds of meeting her, he’d figured out she was sensitive about that outstanding figure of hers, and she hadn’t wasted any time letting him know she was the girl-next-door kind of neighbor, not fair game.
Fine. Both men and women transmitted sexual available-or-not signals on first meeting. Greer’s choice of signals intrigued him. The neon-colored slip, the motherly neighbor routine, her matter-of-fact mention of Jockey shorts: The message was a blunt Don’t waste your time; this lady’s only interest in bed is sleeping.
The message was interesting.
Particularly since she was the sexiest lady he’d come across in a long time.
Her figure stirred definite temptations, but not exclusively. At thirty-four, Ryan was too old to believe that the allure of a potential lover lay solely in her curves and dimensions. Sleeping partners came in all shapes. The best of lovers brought much more to bed than flesh and bones. And it was Greer’s face that radiated all the promise in the word lover.
Her voice came from deep in her throat, as lazy and sensual as black silk. Her dark, soft eyes and other features were not quite beautiful, yet they were mobile, expressive, feminine. Her hair was brown with sun streaks, the style short and casual, wind-tossed and touchable. That was it, exactly. All of her looked infinitely touchable. She radiated vibrancy, a graceful energy, a woman’s special joy in life.
He couldn’t shake the desire to see her naked, to touch and taste, to see if she was as special as his instincts told him she was.
He glanced fleetingly around the kitchen. Hanging plants were clustered in front of the windows; embroidered pictures hung everywhere. The chair seats were needlepoint, and recipes had been jammed into thick cookbooks on the counter. The walls had been painted a warm, feminine coral, and an overstuffed purse perched on a chair near the door. It was a baking-bread kind of kitchen, as no doubt the lady meant it to be. More unambiguous messages that the lady was a homebody rather than a lustful lover.
Perhaps.
Ryan stirred his concoction on the stove. “Almost ready for another glass of wine?”
“Pardon?” It was certainly past time to stop mulling over her mysterious caller. Greer glanced ruefully down at her empty wineglass. “I believe this was intended for you.”
“Maybe later.” He’d itched to hold her when she’d been so upset, but she’d hardly known him an hour. The wine, at least, had calmed her down, and there was color in her face again. Sinking into the chair across from her, Ryan reached for his plate and the wine bottle. “I seem to have made enough food for two, and I’ll refill your glass…”
“No, thanks. Really.” She’d regained her emotional equilibrium, watching him cook. Actually, what she’d really regained was her sense of humor. He was certainly aggressive about finding the pans, but his knowledge of what to do with them afterward was not so extensive. With her chin perched on her palm, Greer peered at his culinary effort, a sassy grin on her mouth. “Are you absolutely positive that’s edible?”
“I’ll have you know I survived through college on tuna-noodle casserole.”
“‘Surviving’ looks like the applicable word,” Greer teased.
“Now, don’t judge until you’ve tasted.” He speared a small amount on a fork and aimed it at her mouth.
Their eyes met for a fraction of an instant before her lips enclosed the morsel. His were very blue, very warm, and oddly intimate. No man had looked at Greer like that in a very long time.
She swallowed hurriedly, having to remember to taste the bite on the way down. “Have you considered buying a basic cookbook?” she asked sympathetically. “There are some good ones that even beginners can cope with.”
Ryan sighed. “There’s nothing more annoying than a chauvinistic woman,” he mentioned to the ceiling.
“Hey. That wasn’t a sexist comment.” Greer paused. “Although if you had lived in caveman times, I think you’d have done better waving your club around and looking cool while you invented the wheel than fussing around the old cooking fire. I don’t want to imply that mankind would have totally died out from this recipe, but…”
“I’ve tickled my sisters half to death for far less offensive insults than that,” Ryan informed her.
Greer chuckled even as she felt a slight wariness at the reference to tickling. “Luckily, I’ve never had that particular sensitivity,” she said smoothly. “Even my little toes aren’t ticklish-and heaven knows, my older sister used to try.”
Ryan received and acknowledged the tiny warn-off signal. He couldn’t help it if he still wanted her alone for an hour on a king-sized mattress in order to check out her ticklishness personally.
“Are you going to tell me about your crank calls?” he asked abruptly.
“Sure. If you want to hear.”
“I want to hear.” He didn’t want to upset her again by making her talk about it, but she had no choice. Whether or not she appreciated the interference, he wasn’t about to go across the hall and unpack without first getting answers to a few questions. “Exactly how long have you been getting the calls? When did they start? Have you called the police? The phone company?”
Greer smiled and reached over to pat his arm reassuringly. “Why am I getting the impression you think I haven’t handled the problem?” she asked wryly. “Now, I know I made a bad first impression, but I’m twenty-seven years old and have been managing my own life for some time now. Of course I’ve called the police and phone company.”
“And?”
“And nothing. The police were nice, but they take action only if the caller’s potentially dangerous. Mine’s a mere breather. They tactfully referred me to the phone company, which puts breathers in the nuisance category. Nuisance calls just aren’t worth the same attention as abusive or obscene calls.”
“So they haven’t done anything.” Ryan’s eyes darkened.
“They’ve done lots. They changed my number and gave me piles of forms to fill out. For a couple of weeks they even put a tracer on my phone; and they’re extremely sympathetic. But it is silly to get upset, you know. Crank callers, I gather, are like flashers. They get a perverse thrill out of upsetting women, but no one’s getting physically threatened or hurt.”
“Honey…” Ryan started irritably. She’d done her share; he heard that. He’d never had anyone hand him a problem that didn’t have a solution. Mountains were probably put there to climb. And where he grew up, a man didn’t abandon a woman who was seriously afraid and simply hand her some forms.
In the living room, the telephone barely trilled before Ryan leaped out of his chair and lurched for it. Before Greer had the chance to get nervous, he was barking her name from the other room.
“Someone named Daniel,” he growled as he handed her the receiver.
“Dan?” she said. “No, that was my new neighbor.” With the receiver cupped to her ear, Greer smiled into Ryan’s blue eyes, a little startled to see that the dance in them had been replaced by little chips of ice. “Sure, Friday night will be fine…” No problem, she mouthed to Ryan, the caller was a friend.
He stuffed his hands loosely into his jeans pockets, but hovered until she hung up the telephone. After that, he took on the dishes while she made coffee.
An hour later, she was curled in the old wicker rocker, and Ryan, was stretched out on the couch. Tuesday evenings were usually a boring midpoint in the week, but not this one. Greer couldn’t remember feeling as at ease and content i
n anyone’s company on first meeting.
He was from Maine, he told her, a simple old-fashioned backwoods town not far from the Atlantic coast. He clearly loved the place. Unfortunately, the town offered limited opportunities for a mechanical engineer; he’d worked for six years for one company, but there’d been no hope of further advancement. He was interested in starting his own firm eventually, but he didn’t have the varied experience he needed to do that just yet-and Laughlin had snapped him up after seeing his qualifications, grateful that he was willing to move to North Carolina.
Of the women in his life he said nothing, Greer noted, but the longer she listened to him, the more she was conscious that first impressions were deceiving. His looks weren’t ordinary at all. His eyes often sparkled with fine dry humor; he had an endearing crooked grin; and his body…there was something about that body that reminded her of lumberjacks or shipbuilders. Energy, vitality, the lithe way he moved…he was so clearly a physical man.
For an instant, she could picture him being very physical. A slim, svelte blonde popped into Greer’s imagination. A very sexy lady. A totally naked lady. She suited him very well, Greer mused. In a lover, he would clearly want a physically expressive woman, an uninhibited mate, a boldly sexual match for his own-
Abruptly, she swallowed, feeling a faint heat climb up her cheeks. Behave yourself, Greer. She always analyzed people on first meeting, but she rarely fantasized about their sex lives.
“…enemies?”
Greer blinked awake and rapidly reached for the half-full coffee cup on the table next to her. “Pardon?”
“Have you thought about who might be making those calls to you? What about this Daniel, for instance?”
She had no interest in returning to the upsetting topic of The Breather, but Ryan’s question made her smile. “Daniel wouldn’t swat a mosquito on his brave days. I’ve known him for several months; he’s a very brilliant accountant, but he’s unbelievably shy.”
Pink Satin Page 2
