She sat on the sofa close to where he’d been sitting, and scooted even closer once he was settled next to her. Then she picked up his hand and sandwiched it between hers on her thigh. Craig couldn’t escape the feeling that her actions were a display of loyalty in front of her fiancé’s partner, which only confirmed that he’d been right about her need to defend her relationship with him.
“Scalisi promised to let me know if there were any developments,” Craig said, a little defensively.
“A good-looking guy like you drops out of sight, and nobody seems to notice,” Josh said, folding his long frame into an armchair. “It’s odd, isn’t it?”
“It’s hell on a man’s ego,” Craig replied evenly, trying not to respond too belligerently to the challenging tone Josh had used. He didn’t want to provoke him. The guy was trouble; Craig could feel it in his guts. Holly had meant well when she’d asked for the man’s help, but he wished she hadn’t. He didn’t need a cop with an attitude complicating things, particularly one with a proprietary interest in Holly.
“Scalisi and I are double-checking the MP reports that come in,” Josh said. “MP—that’s missing persons.”
“I’m familiar with the jargon by now,” Craig said.
“I’ll just bet you are,” Josh said, dripping sarcasm.
“Josh!” Holly said.
Craig squeezed her hand. “You don’t have to defend me, Holly. I can speak for myself.” He leveled his gaze on Josh. “You seem to have a problem with my situation.”
“A problem? I don’t have a problem with it. I just don’t buy it.”
“J—” Holly swallowed the second half of the syllable when Craig gave her hand another squeeze.
“I appreciate your candor,” Craig said. “Do you mind telling me why you feel the way you do?”
“It just doesn’t play,” Josh said. “No one drops out of sight without being missed unless he plans it that way.”
Craig pondered the comment before answering. “You’ve been a cop too long, buddy. If I wanted to disappear, I’d disappear to a tropical island or a mountaintop somewhere. I’m living in limbo here.”
The lewd glint in the cop’s eyes as his gaze slid to Holly made Craig want to cram a fist down Josh’s throat, especially when he said, “From my perspective, it doesn’t look like you’re doing all that bad.”
“My relationship with Holly has nothing to do with my amnesia. I’ve lost my memory, but not my ability to feel, and my feelings for Holly are genuine.”
“How touching.”
“Josh!” Holly repeated, pulling her hand free. “I came to you in friendship asking for help. If you want to help, then help. If not, tell me to go jump off a cliff. But don’t come into my home and insult someone I care about.”
Frowning, Josh regarded them for several seconds. With the forced sincerity of a political hostage compelled to betray his cause, he said, “I may have come on a bit strong. If I did, I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” Holly said, visibly relaxing.
Josh addressed Craig. “You know about Craig?”
He nodded.
“He was my best friend as well as my partner,” Josh explained. “That makes Holly... Let’s just say, I wouldn’t want to see her hurt.”
“Then we have that much in common,” Craig said, spreading his arm across Holly’s shoulders. “Hurting Holly is the last thing I’d ever want to do.”
“Assuming that your story is solid and you do have amnesia, have you given any thought to what’s going to happen if you wake up one morning and remember that you have a pregnant wife and a couple of kids?”
“Craig doesn’t think he’s married,” Holly said.
As the words left her mouth, she realized how naive they sounded.
“Well, for your sake, I hope to hell he’s right about that,” Josh said. “Either, way, I’m going to be monitoring the missing persons reports very closely.”
7
DAYLIGHT WAS FADING, the sun disappearing on the western horizon. The crowd on the beach had thinned, and the rhythmic lap of the ocean and the caw of soaring gulls were gradually replacing the sounds of human frolicking.
Craig and Holly lay side by side on beach chairs, resting from an hour of serious play in the waves. Holly’s hair was beginning to dry, and the breeze sweeping gently over the surf lifted tendrils around her face. The fingers of her right hand were threaded through the fingers of Craig’s left. Her eyes were closed.
“This was a good idea,” she said.
“Excellent,” Craig agreed, sounding as mellow as she felt.
“I had to get out of the apartment after that scene with Josh.”
“He means well,” Craig said.
Holly laughed softly. “I was just about to say the same thing. If I had known he was going to be such a jerk, I wouldn’t have called him.”
“He’s just trying to protect you.”
“He feels responsible for me.”
Seconds ticked by in silence before he said, “What if he’s right? What if I’m wrong about being married? What if I’m a bigger jerk than he is, and I’m believing what I want to believe because I’m head over heels in lust with you?”
What if? Holly had asked herself the same questions over and over. And every time she asked the question, she gave herself the same answer she now gave him: “If it works out that way, then we’ll deal with it.”
“What if I’m such a creep that I can’t deal with the memories of what I’m really like, so I’m making up an idealized personality for myself?” His tone was tortured. “What if everyone who knows me either doesn’t care what happened to me or is so glad I’m gone that they just haven’t bothered to report it?”
Tightening her fingers around his, Holly said, “You are who you are and what you are.”
He twisted his head toward hers and studied her face. “We don’t know who I am.”
She was never immune to that haunting loneliness in his eyes. “We know what you are,” she said. “That’s more important than names.”
“Tell me, Holly,” he said grimly. “What am I?”
“Kind. Witty. Gentle.” She smiled. “Passionate.”
“How do we know that the man you know is the real me? Maybe the man you know is some reverse image of who I really am.”
“How would I know that about any man?” Holly asked. “The papers are filled with stories about men who deceive women, who live double lives, who have Jekyll-and-Hyde personalities. At least with you, I know where the question marks are.”
Seconds passed before he said, “I can’t remember anything before a few weeks ago, but I can’t believe that I could ever have felt as much affection for a woman as I feel for you at this moment.”
Holly’s smile was bittersweet. “I’m your touchstone, remember?”
He looked into her eyes. “That I could never forget.”
* * *
TUESDAY AFTERNOON, Meryl and Sarah cornered Holly in the ladies’ room, demanding details.
“Details of what?” Holly asked, feigning innocence.
“Details of what, she wants to know!” Meryl said.
“Start with the skink and then explain why neither of us heard from you all weekend,” Sarah said.
“And why you’ve had that smug, cat-with-a-canary expression on your face,” Meryl said.
“I plead my Fifth Amendment right not to answer,” Holly said.
“I knew it!” Sarah said.
“That explains why you and Craig have been playing peek-and-grin all day,” Meryl said. “He can’t take his eyes off you!”
“He never could,” Sarah teased. “But now Holly can’t take her eyes off him, either. I wonder why.”
“Do you think all three of us should be in here at the same time?” Holly said. “Who’s running the library?”
“You’re right,” Sarah said with an aggrieved sigh. “Meryl and I are absent without leave, so you’re off the hook for now.”
“But only
until lunch tomorrow.”
“Lunch tomorrow?” Holly said.
“The poor dear’s so addled she doesn’t remember that we have lunch every Wednesday,” Meryl said.
“Tomorrow’s Wednesday?” Holly asked.
“She’s got it bad,” Sarah said, shaking her head.
“Ba-a-a-d,” Meryl agreed. “But we’ll just have to wait until tomorrow to find out all about it.”
“And you know the rule,” Sarah said. “No Fifth Amendment protection at Wednesday lunch.”
“That’s never been a rule,” Holly protested.
“It’s new,” Sarah said.
“Since when?”
“Since Sarah made it up,” Meryl said. “Come on, Sarah. We’ll just have to keep our curiosity on hold until tomorrow.”
“And it had better be good!” Sarah said.
“With juicy details,” Meryl added.
A few minutes later, at her desk, Holly spied Craig in the general fiction section. She bit her tongue to keep from laughing aloud as he pulled a silly face.
As Meryl had noted, they’d been playing peek-and-grin all day. Sometimes he winked. Sometimes he made a face. And, when he was sure no one else was looking, he stuck out his tongue or threw her a kiss.
Holly felt alive for the first time since her fiancé’s death. She felt about thirteen years old. She felt giddy. She felt...wonderful.
At lunch the next day, she confessed to her friends that she and Craig had become lovers. Meryl and Sarah did everything but produce pom-poms and lead the entire restaurant in a rousing cheer.
“So, out with it—how was it?” Meryl prodded.
“It was...nice.” The understatement took on strength as it came out sounding suspiciously like a sigh of contentment.
“Oh, come on!” Sarah said. “We’re living vicariously here.”
“Sorry,” Holly said. “That’s all I have to say.”
“Awwww!” Sarah groaned, leaning forward to bash her forehead against the table several times. “She’s not going to tell us anything.”
“At least give us a scale reading,” Meryl said. “One to ten.”
“Ten being maximum?” Holly asked.
Meryl nodded, and Sarah, apparently unharmed by the head bashing, squealed delightedly, “She wants to know the maximum!”
Holly paused for dramatic impact, then, with a dumb grin on her face, said, “Twenty-five.”
“I knew it!” Sarah said.
Meryl propped her chin on her fist and issued a lengthy sigh. “So did I.”
“He’s going to help me out at Story Hour tomorrow,” Holly said, deftly changing the subject. “We’re doing fairy-tale classics. He agreed to read the part of the Big Bad Wolf.”
A beat of silence passed before Meryl and Sarah both chuckled, and Meryl asked, “Does he know about the ears and the—” She flapped her hand back and forth, suggesting the swish of a tail.
“I might have forgotten to mention the...uh, costume,” Holly admitted.
“You’re evil,” Meryl said, gleefully wringing her hands together. “I can hardly wait to see it.”
“See it?” Sarah asked. “I’m going to tape it for our video library!”
* * *
CRAIG GRUMBLED a bit about the fuzzy fake-fur ears and the bushy tail suspended from an elastic belt, but he took some consolation in the fact that Holly would be wearing a pink plastic snout as well as ears and a ridiculous curly tail for her portrayal of the Three Little Pigs.
He charmed the children from the first “I swear by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin” down to the final “I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll bl-o-o-o-w your house in!” In fact, Holly was certain he’d added an extra “o” and got a little more flamboyant with each repetition. He even managed to make his death wails comical, upon sliding down the chimney into the pot of boiling water the pigs had waiting for him.
As an encore, Holly traded her snout and ears for a red plastic cape for a reading of “Little Red Riding Hood.” Everything went smoothly until she got to Grandma’s house, and then it seemed to her that the Big Bad Wolf might possibly be having a bit too much fun in his role. The children, involved in the story, didn’t seem to notice the sensual gleam in his eyes as she exclaimed, “Oh, Grandma, what big eyes you have!” Nor did they seem to hear the suggestion in his voice as he answered, “The better to see you with, my dear.”
Holly’s voice caught in her throat as she read, “Oh, Grandma! What big teeth you have!”
The gleam glinted even brighter, the suggestion grew thicker as he replied, “The better to eat you with, my dear.” He turned the remark into an erotic promise that sent fire spreading through Holly, turning the storybook endearment into an intimate caress that made her cheeks flame and her knees weak.
She welcomed the rowdy applause that followed the conclusion of the story, glad that the children’s enchantment with his portrayal of the wolf had apparently distracted them from noticing her odd behavior. “I’m going to get you for this,” she said under her breath as she extended her arm, gesturing for him to take a bow.
He grinned diabolically. “Tomorrow night?”
They were planning on going to an early movie straight from the library, and Holly had little doubt they’d end up at her apartment afterward. Giving him a dose of his own medicine, she smiled seductively. “Maybe. If I’m in the mood.”
“You’ll be in the mood,” he said, bowing to his adoring audience again. Then, pleading that he had to go back to work, he waved goodbye to the kids and walked away with ears pointed high and tail swishing.
When the crowd had dispersed, Holly walked to the corner where Sarah was packing away the camera equipment. “Craig was great, wasn’t he? Did you get it all on tape?”
“It’ll be the first X-rated story hour in our collection,” Sarah replied drolly.
“Was it that obvious?” Holly asked, mortified.
Sarah chuckled. “Only if you were looking for it.”
The rest of the workday passed quickly, and before Holly realized that it was almost closing time, Craig showed up to help her put the children’s section in order. “Are you in the mood yet?” he asked as they sorted.
“Not yet,” she said, continuing her work as though she gave the matter no importance at all.
Liar! Craig thought. She was as much in the mood as he was. He could tell from her voice, and the way she’d avoided looking at him when she said it. Holly almost always looked a person square in the eyes when she spoke to him. “I was thinking that if you were, we might...open a bottle of wine or something after work.”
“Maybe after the movie tomorrow night,” she said.
Craig bit back a smile. There was no conviction in her voice. She was playing hard-to-get, talk-me-into-it. But talking wasn’t exactly what he had in mind.
“You’re probably right,” he said, feigning the same lack of interest she was displaying. “We have to be at work early tomorrow morning.”
Later, he walked her to her car and kissed her good-night. Quite thoroughly. Giving her something to think about. He felt her melting in his arms, softening, responding. Oh, yeah. She was going to be thinking about him, all right.
Holly let the engine warm up longer than usual after getting in the car, but whether she was letting the engine warm up or giving herself a chance to cool down, she wasn’t quite sure. What a kiss!
What a man! It was enough to make her want to leap out of the car, kidnap him and take him home with her. Actually, she’d been a little disappointed when he’d given up so easily on the idea of getting together tonight. True, they’d been together most of the weekend as well as Monday and Tuesday night—together in the most significant and sweetest sense of the word. That had left her with Wednesday morning free for her to sleep late and wash her hair before meeting Meryl and Sarah for lunch.
And Wednesday night for her to start missing Craig.
Scowling, she put the car into gear and headed out of the parking lot. H
e could have argued just a little.
At home, she fed the cat, took a shower, threw on her frivolous boxer shorts-and-baseball-shirt pinstriped pajamas and curled up on the sofa. Buttercup joined her, poking her nose at Holly’s hand until Holly petted her. Gradually, the cat rolled onto her back and Holly stroked her chest. After a minute or two, the cat unexpectedly rolled back over, strolled to the other end of the couch, threw a perplexed look at Holly over her shoulder and meowed angrily.
“What’s wrong, Buttercup? You miss him, too?” Holly exhaled a sigh. “How quickly we get used to—”
Her banter was cut short by a series of forceful knocks at the door. Alarmed, she looked at the wall clock. Ten after ten. Too late for casual visitors. As if any casual visitor would be making such a racket. After a moment of uncertainty, she crept to the door and apprehensively stood on tiptoe to look out the peephole.
Just as she was about to position her eye, the knocking started again. Startled, she gasped, then clasped her hands over her mouth, not wanting to make any sound that would betray her presence to the unknown person on the other side of the door. Holding her breath, she tried again, then gasped once more in surprise. The gasp quickly grew into bubbling laughter when she saw who was beating on her door so rudely.
It was the Big Bad Wolf.
At least, her visitor had ears like the Big Bad Wolf. And she suspected that if she could see the proper location for such a thing, he’d have a bushy tail, as well.
Playing games, was he? She opened the door as far as the chain latch permitted and stuck her face into the crack. “Oh, my!”
“Open the door and let me in.”
“My mother told me never to open my door to wolves,” Holly replied.
“Open the door and let me in, or I swear by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin that I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!”
“Or wake up all my neighbors,” Holly said, undoing the chain. She’d been right about the tail. It swished proudly behind him as he walked.
“I can’t believe you—Craig?”
He was staring at her. Lewdly. “The name is Wolf,” he said, closing the space between them so he could pull her into his arms roughly. “Big—” He nibbled on her neck above her pajama top. “Bad—” His hands slid under her top to knead her bare back. “Wolf.”
Look into My Eyes Page 9
