Do Not Disturb

by Christie Ridgway

  “Sit still a minute and take some breaths,” he advised, moving forward to close the gap between them. “Deep breaths.”

  His short-sleeved shirt was made of a stretchy, satiny fabric that fit closely at the neck and then molded itself to his chest. It clung so snugly, she had no trouble appreciating the wide planes of his pectoral muscles, each ridge topped by the tight buttons of his—Stop!

  Wrenching her gaze away, Angel again struggled for control of her thoughts. She’d seen bikers wearing this same getup millions of times. Just because Cooper was wearing it was no reason to allow that tingling awareness she’d finally been able to dismiss as recognition-gone-awry to rebloom.

  Anyway, women didn’t switch from fine to fascinated, from neutral to sexual with a glance, did they? The female of the species wasn’t visually turned on, she’d read that fact in an article in Men’s Health as recently as last week.

  Not that she didn’t have previous experience to rely on too. She’d had relationships with men. She’d had sex on occasion. But the guys always had to sort of…rub her toward response. Never, not once, had she seen a particular man’s form and been instantly enthralled.

  Realizing she was staring at his legs again, she choked back a mortified moan.

  “Angel, what the hell’s wrong?” Putting one hand on the ground, he shifted nearer.

  “I don’t know,” she answered, trying not to think about the way his arm’s movement had caused his biceps to bunch. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  Then, finally, gratefully, she made the connection. When she was eight, she’d wanted to be a boy, a big, strong boy, more than anything. There had been a gang of bullies at her new school and she’d wished every night to wake up with the height and the muscles to save herself from the next round of intimidation. She’d already given up on her father rescuing her.

  Maybe, probably—for certain!—Stephen Whitney was responsible for this temporary fixation. Past feelings and fears were resurfacing, that’s all. She wasn’t lusting after Cooper Jones. In a flashback to her past, she was lusting after his muscles, the physical symbol of the strength to take care of herself that she’d longed for so many years ago.

  Relieved, she managed to smile and rise to her feet. “I’m fine. It’s just that…” Cooper’s eyes were that hazel, greeny-browny color that could appear light one moment and dark the next. They were dark now, and watchful, and sighing inwardly, she remembered that she was supposed to be inspiring his trust. “That I haven’t had my coffee this morning.”

  He stood too. “I’ve seen some strong reactions to caffeine withdrawal before, but this seems pretty extreme.”

  “You’re telling me,” Angel muttered. She gave herself some additional recovery time by bending over and brushing the dust off her jeans. Get back to the point, she told herself sternly. Focus on those interview warm-up techniques. Concentrate on getting Cooper to relax.

  As he turned and stepped toward his bike, she straightened. “Which reminds me…” She kept her voice light, trying for a smooth segue into some more casual conversation. “You’ll have to tell me your secret.”

  “What?” His voice sharpened and his spine stiffened.

  “Your secret,” she repeated. “You know, where you’ve hidden your stash of those three banned substances: caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco. Around the courthouse you weren’t famous for your abstinence, you know.”

  “Ah.” Cooper’s shoulders relaxed and he wheeled the bike around to face her. “Now I get you.”

  She figured she was making progress with him, because his eyes had lightened and there was a tolerant half-smile on his face. Smiling in return, Angel sauntered closer, thinking good ol’ Professor Brown had been proven right once again.

  “So, see,” she said, close enough now that she had to tilt up her face to look into his, “I’m guessing you have some triple roast hidden somewhere, right alongside a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of scotch.”

  “What would you say if I told you I don’t smoke or drink—alcohol or coffee—anymore?”

  “I’d say…I’d say…” Angel couldn’t think what she’d say because she was astonished. C. J. Jones had a reputation for playing as hard as he worked.

  His laugh was short. “You’d say what?”

  There was something in his eyes now, some kind of pain, that made her break their gazes. She let hers slide down to his neck—another strong, manly column—then on to his wide shoulders and long, lean body. God, he looked good.

  “Angel?” There was a husky note in his voice. “What the hell are you thinking?”

  What the hell was she thinking? She was supposed to be working. Getting Cooper to eat right out of her hand. Looking away, she ran through the preinterview formula again.

  Pleasantries: Check. Casual conversation: More than enough. Her eyes drawn back to him, she realized that only the sincere compliment was left.

  And for some impulsive, mindless reason Angel blurted out the first one that came into her head. “I’m thinking that abstinence gave you one awesome body.”

  In the same time it took for her to absorb her own words and then to cringe with humiliation, she saw the leap of embarrassed color on Cooper’s face, his leap onto his bike, the leap the metal contraption made down the path toward Tranquility.

  If that wasn’t proof enough that her warm-up technique had failed, the hasty manner in which Cooper pedaled off made it very clear she’d done anything but relax his guard.

  “I’m an idiot,” she said aloud.

  The blue jay above her jeered in agreement. Cursing the bird, the renewed throbbing at the base of her skull, and most of all herself, she hurried off in the opposite direction of Cooper.

  At the top of the next rise though, her feet stuttered to a halt, the view below freezing her movement. The trail she’d taken had apparently wound north, because the dark-forested Santa Lucia Mountains were at her right. Looking to her left, her gaze flowed down gently rolling hills to miles of staggered bluffs that dropped into the ocean. On the nearest of the headlands, in the midst of all that natural wonder, sat a cluster of buildings that appeared enchanted.

  Angel blinked, certain they were the figment of someone’s imagination—but not hers, because she hadn’t daydreamed fairy tales since she was four years old. Dominating the clearing was a huge three-story house with deep eaves and a rustic rockwork foundation. It was painted a pale gray, with a bright blue door that was flanked by flowering shrubs in pinks and red. Between the house and the ocean stood a tower, faced with the same rough-hewn rock.

  Nestled in the curve of a small stand of pines, Angel glimpsed a portion of a pool and the roof of a poolhouse. Farther away from the big house was a cottage, one that Hansel and Gretel might have wandered from. It too was painted gray, but the trim was a triple threat of colors: salmon, saffron, and sapphire.

  Angel realized she was holding her breath, as if the simple act of taking in oxygen might disturb a pretty vision. But then the toylike figure of a man appeared on the edge of the trees and strode toward the front door of the little house.

  It was only then she accepted this was no hallucination. Because even from this distance Angel recognized Judd Sterling, and she knew he was flesh and blood. He knocked on the door and in a moment it was opened by a dark-haired woman, a cat at her heels. Beth Jones.

  Which meant that the little kingdom below had been Angel’s father’s.

  Chapter 5

  Judd paused in Beth’s foyer, still somewhat hesitant to follow her into the kitchen. He hadn’t stopped by her house for his customary midmorning break since her brother-in-law Stephen’s death—though he’d wanted to. But Taoism taught that one planned in advance and carefully considered each action before making it, and he hadn’t thought Beth was ready to reestablish their normal routine until today.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, her brows lifting over her brown eyes. “Don’t you want coffee?”

  He had to smile then, becaus
e it brought to mind Angel Buchanan’s desperation at breakfast that morning. Stifling a small pang of guilt that he was going to assuage his own greed for freshly ground beans, he nodded and gestured Beth forward.

  Her turquoise-colored pants were cropped at the ankles and left her slender feet bare. She wore a platinum chain around one ankle, and though he couldn’t see it from here, he knew that dangling from it was a diamond-encrusted E, the anklet one of a pair that Stephen Whitney had presented to his wife and sister-in-law the Christmas before.

  Beth’s cat had been Judd’s own gift to her. During their short procession to the kitchen, the sleek, black-haired Shaft carried on a one-sided conversation in loud meows. He determinedly twined his mistress’s ankle too, rubbing against it as if he, like Judd, wanted to break that chain.

  “Silly cat. He’s been sticking close for days,” Beth said, reaching down to stroke the animal’s head.

  Judd, on the other hand, had given her space. He’d been with her briefly at the memorial service and then at the reception afterward, but other than that he’d kept his distance from the family.

  She placed his coffee mug on the small table across from hers, the San Francisco paper between them. Reading the news while drinking coffee together was the morning ritual they’d established sometime during the five years he’d been living at Tranquility House. Nominally an employee of the family, he’d found himself with a place in their lives. He and Beth had been comfortable, fast friends from the first.

  He didn’t want Stephen’s death to change that.

  Judd took his usual seat and watched her fill his cup from the pot, then her own. She turned her back to him and replaced the pot on the burner. “I’ve missed you,” she blurted out.

  His chair scraped against the floor as he started to rise, but she shook her head.

  “No, don’t,” she said. “I’m a mess right now, I know that.”

  The cat jumped onto the countertop, butting against her. She lifted Shaft against her chest, then swung toward Judd. With her eyes closed, she rubbed her cheek between the animal’s ears. “How could this have happened?” she whispered.

  Judd shook his head, taking a long, assessing look at her. Beth’s face was pale and her skin appeared tightly stretched across her cheekbones. But even obviously exhausted, she looked a decade younger than thirty-four. He’d always wondered if her glow was the result of the sea air or the spell of Stephen Whitney.

  After a moment she sighed, then set the cat on the floor and dropped into her chair. She doctored her coffee with a generous dollop of cream, and then pushed the pitcher toward Judd, as she always did.

  He ignored it, as he always did.

  She laughed, the sound forced. “Why do I always do that? I know you drink yours black.”

  He decided against pointing out the obvious—that it was Stephen who took his coffee with cream.

  Before he could even take a sip from his mug, she popped up from her chair. “I have a million things to do. List upon list. Look!”

  She hurried over to the counter to grab a sheaf of papers, her movements jerky. “But I suppose it will be good to keep busy, don’t you think? Lainey says Cooper will help her with Stephen’s personal things—they’ll do that as soon as Katie goes back to school. I said I’d take care of the art show and I’m sure it will be twice as much trouble to cancel as it was to put it on.”

  Judd nodded. Each September, Whitney showed his year’s worth of paintings. But those canvases had been burned and, yesterday, the ashes thrown into the sea.

  Beth frowned down at the papers in her hand, chattering away in a manner totally unlike herself. “This would have been the twentieth year. We only canceled it one other time, when there was a wildfire in the Lucias and everyone in the area was forced to evacuate. Lainey was six months along with Katie and I…I wasn’t well.”

  She whirled back to the counter. “But you don’t want to hear about all that. Excuse me, excuse me a moment.” With that, she threw down the papers and disappeared from the kitchen. He heard the bathroom door slam shut.

  Staring after her, Judd rose from his chair. Damn it! What was he supposed to do now? Go to her? Leave?

  It flooded him then, a hot rush of the kind of frustration he hadn’t felt in years. His fists clenched, and he struck out with his foot, kicking the leg of his empty chair. It skidded wildy across the floor…and did nothing to calm his mood.

  Damn, damn, damn it! Already he was losing what he’d worked so hard for.

  His mornings with Beth, more important Beth herself, had become integral to the life he’d built for himself here. She was part of the cure that had healed his soul, she was part of the balance he’d finally found with the universe. He’d accepted that the artist’s death would upset that equilibrium some, but he wasn’t prepared for things to change with Beth.

  He’d been so content with how it was between them.

  At the back of the house, he heard the door reopen. Beth’s footsteps were usually light and steady, but now they dragged—as if grief, or maybe Stephen, were holding her back. The sound pulled at him—no, it tore at him—and he started for the door. He needed to get away, he thought with sudden anxiety. He needed to do anything but witness the misery on her face.

  Maybe through some meditation he could recover—

  “Judd. Judd, please. Please, don’t go.”

  Her voice stopped him before he made it out of the kitchen. He gripped the doorjamb, struggling with himself. He’d miscalculated her readiness to get back to normal, that’s all. If he went away now, if he came back another day, a later day, then they’d be able to regain their comfortable harmony.

  “Judd, please,” she whispered.

  But he couldn’t leave her, not when she said his name like that.

  He turned. From across the kitchen, she was looking at him, her eyelashes spiky and wet. She was so beautiful.

  Following her lead, he retrieved his chair, then sat back at the table and cradled his mug in his palms. What was he supposed to do now? Comfort her? He supposed he could tell her that Buddhists think the soul is not extinguished at death, but passed on like a candle flame to an unlit wick. That Hindus believe a person must die for them to discover their deathless, Supreme Self.

  But then again, maybe he should offer nothing. The Shoshone Indians said that grief was a landslide the griever had to work through alone, one rock at a time. After all, he’d been out of the advice game for five years, and inside him, some cautious, wise voice of his own warned that inviting discussion would only further upset the peace between them.

  He glanced up, and caught her swiping a trembling hand beneath her nose.

  That broke him.

  Grabbing up the pen and paper she always had on the table, he quickly blocked out the question. After all these years of self-selected silence, he could be pretty damn pithy with a pen. WHY SO UNHAPPY?

  “I—” Beth broke off, swallowed. “I can’t stop thinking about the past. Oh, Judd, I hurt so much.”

  She hurt.

  He sucked in a sharp breath, and then another, her out-loud admission striking hard at the unprotected and tender belly of his heart. He rubbed his chest, trying to remind himself that the first of the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism was the universality of suffering. That he should be able to understand and accept her pain.

  But it was impossible, because another truth, maybe not as noble, but certainly as elementary, was suddenly staring him in the face. Breathe slow and deep, he told himself, because you’ll definitely have to understand and accept this.

  There would be no denying it, no turning back, that’s for certain. Not when he practiced wu wei—the Taoist art of letting nature take its course.

  And that course had led him to here, he saw now. To Beth. To the realization that he was in love with her.

  And nothing would ever, ever be the same again.

  It was very late afternoon when Angel wound the curly telephone cord around her fingers. “Yeah, yeah
. They took my laptop, my cell phone, everything.”

  At the other end of the line, her intern, Cara, was properly astounded.

  “But I’ll survive,” Angel promised, keeping her voice low. Especially now that she’d discovered the deserted room marked “Infirmary” and its old-fashioned rotary telephone. She didn’t feel the least bit guilty about making the long-distance call either. For one thing, the charges were going on her credit card, and for another, she figured it had a medical purpose. Access to regular inoculations of Real World would keep her sane.

  “But listen, Cara, I don’t have much time. I’ve been going through the files you sent down with me. But I need something else. I need you to mail me a package. No, not more research, not right now.” Angel lowered her voice to a whisper. “A jar of instant coffee, okay?”

  She rolled her eyes when Cara demanded she speak up. “Coffee. Instant coffee,” Angel said more loudly.

  A rustling down the corridor made her freeze. “Shh!” she hissed into the receiver, listening intently. After a few moments of unrelieved silence, she dared to go on.

  Turning her back to the door, she hunched her shoulders and cupped her hand over her mouth. “And Cara,” Angel said into the phone, “the issue with the story on Paul Roth hits the stands today. I want you to call Miss Marshall. You know, just to check on her.”

  Cara made some squeaky protest noises.

  “Listen,” Angel replied sternly. “This isn’t an easy job. If you want to be a journalist, a good one, you have to ask the hard questions and you have to write the hard truths.”

  On the other end, the young woman responded a bit sharply that then you got to order your intern to make the hard phone calls.

  Cara was smarter-mouthed than she looked.

  But Angel kept both her smile and her sympathy out of her voice. “Hey, think of it like this. You get to learn the easy way not to give your heart or place your faith in a man. That’s worth dozens of uncomfortable conversations.”