It Takes a Hero

by Gina Wilkins

  Sitting beside her, Perry spread his long legs in front of him. “Do you ever fish?”

  “No. I’m content just to sit and enjoy.”

  He scooped a small flat pebble from the ground at his feet. With a deft flick of his wrist, he sent it skipping across the surface of the water. “Haven’t done that since I was a kind.”

  “You’re still very good at it,” she assured him gravely. “It must have skipped six or seven times.”

  “Ten.”

  She lifted an eyebrow. “Ten? You think so?”

  “I know so. I counted.”

  “Mmm”

  “You doubt me?”

  “Let’s just say I know you politicians like to put a positive spin on things.”

  He leaned forward to search the ground, then picked up another small, flat rock. “Count,” he said, and sent the rock flying across the water.

  It sank on the tenth skip. “Okay,” Kristin conceded. “We’ll count that as ten.”

  Perry nodded in satisfaction. “I’ve told you, I’m not the kind of politician you seem to think I am.”

  She cleared her throat and glanced at her watch, having no intention of getting into a political discussion with him. “We’d better head back to the house. By the time we wash up, our dinner will be ready.”

  He stood and extended his hand to her. She placed hers in it, letting him draw her to her feet. He didn’t immediately release her. Instead, he pulled her toward him. “I can’t think of a more perfect place to steal a kiss,” he murmured, and proceeded to do so.

  It really was a lovely place for a surprise kiss, Kristin thought, clutching his shirt. The only thing marring her pleasure in the moment was her certainty that she would never again come to this spot without remembering it...and him.

  Perry drew back before the embrace escalated. “I was right,” he said. “It was perfect.”

  She moistened her lips and almost shivered when she tasted him there. “We, uh, we’d better go check on our dinner.”

  PERRY SEEMED ALMOST surprised when he took a bite of the spinach lasagna they’d prepared together. “Hey, this is really good!”

  Kristin couldn’t help laughing. “You were expecting it to be bad?”

  He swallowed a second bite. “Delicious. Cooking’s not really all that hard, is it?”

  “No, not if you start with relatively simple dishes and carefully follow directions.”

  “Do you mind if I take a copy of the recipe with me? I’d like to try making it again.”

  Kristin couldn’t help wondering who he wanted to impress with his novice culinary skills. She looked down at her meal as she replied, “You’re welcome to the recipe, of course.”

  He ate in silent appreciation for a few moments, then asked, “How’s your book coming?”

  She promptly lost her appetite. “Slowly.”

  “You said it wasn’t going well. What’s the problem? ”

  She shrugged. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

  She didn’t doubt that. The problem was she didn’t know how to make him understand what she didn’t understand herself. Why she, who had written a dozen books and enjoyed nearly every minute of doing so, was suddenly finding herself struggling to finish a page. Dreading the next time she sat at the computer. Devoid of any fresh ideas, when ideas had once been so plentiful in her head that she had hardly been able to contain them. “There’s really nothing to say.”

  “I’ve met a few writers. It isn’t an easy job, is it?”

  “Some people think it’s very easy. All you have to do is make up a story.”

  “Who was it that said all you have to do is sit at the typewriter and open a vein?”

  She smiled, recognizing the allusion. “Heming-way, I think.”

  “Does it feel that way for you?”

  “I never thought of it as so painful...until recently.”

  “What’s gone wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured, wishing he would just drop the subject. “I’m just in a temporary slump, I guess. And it doesn’t help,” she added a bit peevishly, “that people keep dropping in on me without notice.”

  “I can see where that would become annoying,” he commiserated. “You should probably tell them to stop.”

  “I’ve tried. Some people just don’t take hints.”

  He clicked his tongue. “Ain’t it the truth. Want me to refill your wineglass?”

  She nodded absently. “So what have you been up to the past few days?” she asked, mostly to change the subject.

  “Meetings. Luncheons. Dinners. The usual.”

  “I saw your picture in a newsmagazine. You were talking to Senator Reynolds.”

  He nodded. “I saw that one. The tag line implied that he and I were discussing an important campaign strategy.”

  “And were you?”

  He grinned. “He was telling me about his daughter’s new boyfriend. The guy has a ponytail, a safety pin through his tongue and a tattoo that reads Have a Knife Day. He was asking if I thought it would hurt his chances for reelection if he took the kid out for a hike in the woods and ‘accidentally’ lost him.”

  “Senator Reynolds’s daughter is dating a boy like that?” Kristin didn’t try to hide her amazement. “No wonder he’s upset. He always comes across as stepping straight out of the 1950s.”

  Perry’s smile dimmed a bit. “Larry’s a genuinely nice guy. Most of the garbage you’ve read to the contrary has been manufactured by his liberal opposition.”

  “And how much garbage have you ‘manufactured’ against his liberal opposition?”

  “I have never distributed any information that I didn’t believe to be true. I’ll admit I’ve been duped a couple of times into defending candidates who didn’t deserve my misguided loyalty, but that was when I was younger, less experienced and more willing to believe what I wanted to hear.”

  “So all your candidates now are fine, honest, upstanding citizens who only have the country’s best interest at heart and have no hidden agendas of their own?” She made no effort to hide her skepticism.

  “All the candidates I work for have convinced me they are the best men and women for the offices they are seeking,” he answered firmly. “They′re human, they make mistakes and have a few flaws, but I believe in them or I wouldn’t be supporting them.”

  Kristin couldn’t help thinking there were times when Perry Goodman sounded just too good to be true. Like Jim, a nagging little voice inside her whispered. She sipped her wine, then set the glass on the table. “I think you should know that I rarely vote for your party. Old-fashioned conservatives tend to make me nervous.”

  He shrugged. “Some of them scare the hell out of me. So do some of the off-the-wall liberals. My personal candidates tend to be more in the middle. Just a little right of center, for the most part.”

  “And I guess you’d consider me a little left of center.”

  He grinned, showing no concern. “Should make for some interesting after-dinner debates.”

  She frowned and shook her head. “I never debate politics, religion or the definition of a ‘good’ book. Some people—my mother, for one—love to get into noisy, heated arguments. I prefer quiet, courteous conversations.”

  “So do I, for the most part. And for the record, I would never belittle your political beliefs. I would assume you’ve given them serious consideration and have very good reasons for forming your opinions. I respect that even when my own choices are different.”

  Kristin bit her lip, aware that her usual decision-making process when it came to politics was sort of close-her-eyes-and-pick-one. She had just never been particularly interested in the entire process. Perry was giving her too much credit, which wasn’t the way she had expected him to react to her announcement that she didn’t support his party.

  She reached again for her wineglass. Perry Goodman was proving more difficult to discourage than she had predicted, though
she still wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted from her. He was almost impossible to read. She only hoped he didn’t turn out to be equally impossible to resist.

  SOMETIME BETWEEN THE MAIN course and the strawberry cake Kristin served for dessert, Perry reached a decision. She had been badly hurt by a man she had trusted, leaving her wary of trusting so easily again. She was anxious and stressed-out about her work, and her tension was probably contributing to the difficulty she’d been having. She needed to relax and she needed to learn to trust again. Until then, he didn’t have a chance with her.

  Which meant, he thought regretfully, he had to call on every ounce of patience he possessed—never his strong suit—to allow her to find out for herself that he was a man she could count on.

  He didn’t stay long after helping her clear away the dishes. He really didn’t want to leave, but it seemed the best course of action. Kristin walked him to the door, her expression giving no indication of how she felt about his early departure.

  “I had a very nice evening,” he told her at the door. “Thank you for the cooking lesson.”

  “I had a good time, too,” she admitted. “But, Perry, call first next time, will you?”

  He nodded quickly, before she could realize she had just implicitly committed to a next time.

  He reached out to cup her face between his hands. “You’ll be hearing from me soon. I’m having too much trouble staying away from you.”

  She reached up as if by reflex to touch his hands with hers. “I enjoy visiting with you, Perry. But there’s little else I can offer for now.”

  “Then that will have to be enough—for now.” He brushed his lips across her forehead and then the tip of her incredibly cute nose. And then he touched his lips to hers, exerting massive self control to keep the kiss light and relatively chaste when he wanted so much more.

  He drew back slowly, smiling faintly down at her. “Someday...” he murmured, then let the sentence trail away unfinished. Taking a deep breath to bolster his willpower, he released her and stepped away. “Good night, Kristin. Sleep well.”

  He left quickly—before he gave in to the almost overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and carry her off to bed.

  THE PACKAGE ARRIVED LATE the next morning. Kristin might have expected flowers—and probably wouldn’t have been overly touched by them, since flowers were such a standard gesture.

  Perry sent her a magic wand.

  She lifted the whimsical gift out of the package with a bemused smile. The shaft of the wand was clear plastic, filled with glitter suspended in water. A sparkling sequin-covered plastic star made up the head of the wand, and long, shiny, multicolored streamers tumbled from the bottom.

  Wave this over your computer, was scrawled on the enclosed card. It couldn’t hurt. It was signed simply, Perry.

  He really should have just sent flowers, Kristin thought, turning the wand in her hand to allow the glitter to catch the light. She doubted that flowers would have brought such a massive lump to her throat.

  She set the wand beside her computer while she worked that afternoon. She refused to accept that it made the least bit of difference, of course, but she did manage to write five pretty good pages that day. Not nearly as many pages as she needed to get even close to being back on schedule—but it was three more pages than she’d managed to write the last time she’d spent a day at the computer.

  Another package arrived the next day. Kristin dug through layers of protective bubble-wrap and pulled out a six-inch-high porcelain figurine. It depicted a delicate, winged fairy clothed in a sheer floating dress, her blond hair a tousled halo around her sweet face. The fairy stood on tiptoes, leaning slightly forward, a tiny wand in her right hand. The enclosed card read only Make A Wish.

  Perry really was going to have to stop this, she thought, setting the little figurine on her desk. It made her smile every time she looked at it that afternoon. She wrote six pages, and was satisfied with all but one of them—and that one, she decided, was fixable.

  The next day’s delivery came from a local florist, but rather than a bouquet of flowers, Perry had sent her a potted shamrock plant. I′ve heard these are lucky, the unsigned card read.

  The plant found a home on her office windowsill.

  Perry called that evening. “How’s it going?” he asked without identifying himself.

  “You have to stop sending me gifts,” she scolded mildly.

  He chuckled. “I was trying to bring you luck with your writing. Is it working?”

  Since she’d written more in the past three days than she had in the preceding three weeks, she didn’t quite know how to answer him. Her writing had nothing to do with his gifts, of course. She’d simply had a pretty good week. She still had a long way to go before the book was finished.

  He didn’t wait for her to come up with an answer. “I’ve missed you, Kristin.”

  If she had been stumped for a response before, she was doubly so now. “Um...”

  “I have to fly to Dallas tomorrow for a major fund-raiser. I don’t suppose you’d be free to go with me?”

  “I really can’t,” she said, not sure if she was relieved or just slightly disappointed that she had a legitimate excuse. “I have to work.”

  “I was afraid of that.” He sounded resigned. “We could have had fun.”

  She didn’t doubt that, actually. She’d had fun, despite herself, whenever she was with Perry. But she really couldn’t run off to Dallas with him tomorrow—for many reasons, not the least of which was her work.

  “Is your writing going more smoothly?” he asked.

  “Maybe a little better,” she said guardedly.

  “That’s good news, isn’t it?”

  “Of course.”

  “You sound like you’re afraid to talk about it. Superstitious?”

  “No, not really. Just...cautious.”

  “No problem. You’re sure you won’t go to Dallas with me?”

  She smiled, thinking he deserved some credit for persistence. “I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Then I’ll see you when I get back. In the meantime—think of me occasionally, okay?”

  As if she could help it, especially when he kept sending whimsical little gifts to remind her of him. “Have a safe trip, Perry.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that. Bye.”

  Kristin’s hand was still on the receiver when the phone rang again. It was her mother, calling to chatter enthusiastically about her rapidly approaching trip.

  “It’s going to be so much fun,” Sophie enthused. “But I wish...”

  “What?” Kristin wondered if her mother was having second thoughts about taking off for Australia with a man she’d bought at an auction.

  She should have known better. Sophie’s only worries, as usual, were for her daughter. “I wish you were going to be having a good time, too. I feel as though I’m leaving when you need me most.”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine. You have a wonderful time.”

  “Maybe Perry will come see you again while I’m gone,” her mother suggested hopefully. “You couldn’t help but have a good time with him.”

  Kristin kept her mouth firmly. If Sophie found out that Kristin had just declined the chance to accompany Perry to Dallas, she would be appalled. She would do everything she could to change her daughter’s mind. And because Kristin wasn’t at all sure how firm her resolution was on that particular subject, anyway, she didn’t need to cloud the issue with her mother’s nagging.

  As Kristin concluded the call a few minutes later, she reassured herself that she really couldn’t have given Perry any other answer. Even if she was the type to travel with a man she hardly knew, Kristin had to work. Sophie lived on her late husband’s benefits and her own retirement from thirty years of teaching public school, supplementing her income by occasionally substitute teaching. She was free to take off on spontaneous vacations whenever she wanted, unlike Kristin, who had to meet her deadlines if her bills were to be paid.

>   Kristin sighed and ran a hand through her hair, looking around her cluttered office. It was time to get back to work. There was nothing to disturb her now—the house was quiet and empty. Maybe a little too quiet and empty, she thought wistfully. Maybe she should get a cat or something.

  SHE GOT A RABBIT. The plush toy arrived the next day, her delivery from Perry. It was brown-and-white with a pink nose and a shiny pink ribbon around its neck. Kristin laughed when she read the card.

  If one rabbit’s foot is lucky, four should be even better.

  She couldn’t resist lifting the impossibly soft toy to her cheek. Why couldn’t the man just send flowers?

  The gifts she received during the following days continued to carry the “good luck” theme. He sent a crystal box filled with pennies. One of these must be a lucky penny, the card assured her. The next day’s delivery brought a little leprechaun doll holding a tiny pot of “gold.” Someone to keep you company, the accompanying card informed her. The grinning little face made Kristin smile as she sat the doll on the desk beside her computer monitor.

  She couldn’t help wondering how much influence Perry’s string of quirky gifts had to do with the sudden surge of creativity she experienced during the next week. She found herself getting deeper and deeper into her story. Her characters came to life, moving through the pages with more spirit and energy than she’d been able to give them a few weeks earlier.

  Nick O’donnell was quickly becoming the strongest hero she’d ever written—and Kristin didn’t even try to tell herself that was only a, coincidence. She was fully, wryly aware that Nick had taken on more and more of Perry’s finest traits—his charm, his spontaneity, his sense of humor, the high ideals he expressed about his job and his commitments. On paper, he was the perfect romance hero.

  As for whether he would ever be her hero—well, that was another question. One that made her extremely nervous even to consider at this point.