Heat of the Moment

by Lori Herter

  “I love you, Peter.” She rose up a bit, drawing her face a few inches away from his so she could look at him. “You’re the kindest man I ever met. I’m so in love with you.”

  His eyes warmed with a shining glow, and her heart leaped. And then he shifted his gaze, looking a bit unsettled, as if the news that she loved him had come as a surprise he wasn’t quite ready for.

  “You’ve completed my life,” she went on. “Changed me. Remember how shy I was when I first met you?”

  He was listening to her with a caring but somewhat distracted expression, when all at once some thought seemed to pop into his mind. His expression sobered.

  “Sly-shy?” he said. And then, very quickly, the light died in his eyes and his face became a mask, devoid of feeling.

  “What did you say?” she asked.

  Peter began to sit up. She moved off of him quickly so he could, not understanding why he’d suddenly changed. He didn’t answer her question. In fact, he said nothing. Absolutely nothing. He was shutting her out again.

  Feeling coldness sweep over her face, down her throat and into her body, Josie realized she’d just embarrassed herself by telling him she loved him. Clearly he didn’t return her feelings. For him it had just been sex, not making love. She’d thought, been sure—at least until several days ago—that he had feelings for her. Maybe not love, but she was sure he cared about her, at least. But seeing the total lack of reaction in his face now told her she had indeed misjudged him. How could she have been so stupid as to hope that he returned even half the feelings she had for him?

  She got off the couch and picked up her clothes from behind him. She put them on again, sternly forcing herself to hold back her tears, trying to retain some dignity.

  Once she was dressed, she wasn’t sure what to do next. Say something to him? Just leave the room without a word? She paced toward the end of the big couch, then stood for a long moment facing the bookcase before turning around.

  Josie willed her voice to be steady. “Don’t you have anything to say? Some polite speech about how you’re sorry you can’t return my feelings?”

  Peter sat on the couch, finishing buckling his belt and coolly gazed at her. “I think we’ve both gotten what we wanted.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you know.”

  “Know what? Why are you talking in riddles?”

  “It was your aim to seduce me. I went along with it because I wanted you. And now it’s over.”

  “Seduce you…”

  He nodded. “A shy and sly little spy. Why was I so blind that I couldn’t see it?” His voice was crisp, cold. “I should have learned by now I can’t trust my own judgment, my own feelings.” He gazed up at her with a sardonic expression. “I’m angry with myself more than you. You were just doing your job, I suppose—”

  A sharp sound, almost like a sonic boom, shook the house. Josie glanced at the chandelier over the dining room table. It was swaying slightly. A sudden new jolt beneath her feet made her lose her balance and she fell to her knees as everything rattled and shook. Earthquake! she thought.

  “Josie! The bookcase!”

  Trying to get her bearings, she turned and saw the tall bookcase behind her swaying as books began falling off the shelves. One hit her on the shoulder, then suddenly she felt lifted off her knees to her feet. A strong arm around her rushed her away, across the room, then pushed her under the dining room table.

  As the house continued to shake violently, she looked out from beneath the table to see the bookcase she’d been standing near fall over onto the couch. The bookcase next to it soon tipped over, too and then the third one. She might have been squashed beneath if Peter hadn’t pulled her away.

  She turned and Peter was crouching next to her, beneath the table, his arm around her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice full of alarm.

  Josie felt dumbstruck. “Y-you walked!”

  He looked away, out into the room as the shaking began to subside.

  “You can walk!” She began to crawl away from him, out from under the table.

  He gripped her at her hips, keeping her from moving. “It may not be over yet. Stay here!”

  “You lied to me!”

  Peter stared at her with impassive eyes. “I lied to everyone.”

  “Why?”

  “So whoever tried to kill me would think I was still incapacitated. So I’d have the advantage next time.” He eyed her darkly. “I should have known they sent you to finish me off, in a different way.”

  “Sent me?”

  “You’re still working for Lansdowne. You pulled the wool over my eyes for a while, but Al set me straight. You came here to distract me, seduce me.”

  “I’m not working for Martin! I thought you believed me.” Josie felt angry, mortified. “Oh, my God! That’s what you thought while we were…? You made love to me and that’s what you believed about me? Why did you let me go on?”

  “I wanted you. I wanted to believe you were on the level, so I let myself believe it. It’s not the first time I’ve been blindsided by a woman. I fell for your injured innocence routine the moment you walked into my house. Now that I’ve got that ache for you out of my system, I’m thinking clearly again. You duped me!”

  “If you think I’m a spy, why did you give up your phony invalid act to save me?”

  He glanced at her, his eyes flashing before he coldly looked away. “You’re too pretty to get crushed under a bookcase.”

  She crawled out from under the table. The violent tremors had stopped. The house was in a shambles, but neither Peter nor she took much notice. The emotional quake taking place between them was far more shattering.

  “You think I duped you?” she shouted at him as he got out from under the table. “You let me think I was safe with you because you were in a wheelchair! And all the while you could walk!”

  He rose to his feet and stood in front of her. And all at once she felt intimidated by his height—he looked to be well over six feet tall. She backed away as he stepped toward her.

  “And you came here to keep me distracted while you were feeding Frameworks’ secrets to Lansdowne through Ronnie.”

  “No, I wasn’t! What proof do you have?”

  “Al saw you having lunch with Ronnie.”

  “I told you I had lunch with her—”

  “Not until I questioned you. You never said a word about being friends with anyone at Earthwaves. Meanwhile, Lansdowne tried to make Al an offer, to get him on Earthwaves’ team. Instead of finishing me off, it seems he’s decided to break up my company. He thinks I’m too incapacitated to work and too sexually distracted by you to do anything about it!”

  “I didn’t know Lansdowne made Al an offer, Peter. And how can you think I came here to seduce you? It’s always been you pursuing me!”

  “That’s what you made me think.” Pain filled his eyes. “I should have guessed you weren’t so innocent and afraid of men as you wanted me to believe. Lately, you couldn’t keep from dazzling me with your bared breasts. And then the next thing I know, you want to have sex! The very thing you were so afraid of. Did Lansdowne tell you to turn up the steam, to keep me too besotted to figure out what was going on?”

  Josie’s eyes brimmed with tears of anguish. “You freed me from my fears. I loved it whenever you touched me. How can you think that I was—?”

  She stopped. What was the use trying to explain? He was convinced. She stared up at him accusingly. “You made me believe you couldn’t hurt me. I thought you were the kindest man I’d ever met! I thought that finally I’d found what I’d been missing, what I’d been longing for. When we were making love, I felt so—”

  Fulfilled was what she’d been about to say. But she didn’t want him to know that. She laughed harshly as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I thought you were perfect! What is it with you men? You get some kind of kick out of setting us up to slap us down?”

  He stood before her with a
blank look in his eyes, as if he were taking in what she was saying but didn’t know how to process it. She felt like slapping him, but he was too tall and looked too potentially overpowering for her to even try. She’d thought Peter had helped her overcome her fears, but now he was only reinforcing them. She would have been better off if she’d never trusted him in the first place. Why was she such a poor judge of men?

  Josie walked around him to go into the kitchen, where broken dishes and glass cluttered the tile floor. Walking carefully, she picked up her purse from the counter where she’d left it after coming back from the grocery store that afternoon. She got out her car keys.

  Peter had followed her, and he watched as she left the kitchen and headed toward the front door. “You’re leaving?”

  She turned on him and with cool sarcasm said, “You want me to stay? After all this?”

  He hesitated, his eyes wide, as if he were trying to think more quickly than his mind would work. “No. No. You’re…fired, by the way.” He said this with such a quizzical look on his face, in such an offhanded manner she almost could have laughed. What was going on with him now?

  Like she should care anymore! “No, I quit!” She opened the door and slammed it behind her. Rushing out the gate to the street, she got into her car and sped away. She drove back to her condo, feeling numb, keeping her emotions in check. At last she reached the privacy of her home. Once she’d closed the front door, she saw that her own bookcase had been overturned. The place was a mess. Among the clutter, an antique vase from her grandmother lay in pieces on the floor.

  But none of that mattered. Josie sank to the floor in sobs, betrayed and wounded by love for the second time in her life.

  9

  HITTING ON THE San Andreas, the earthquake measured 7.4. Hundreds of people had been injured. Millions of dollars worth of damage had been done. Peter’s sisters had called first thing in the morning and he’d learned that everyone in his family had survived the quake without injury. At last, some good news. Still, all Peter could think about as he cleaned up the books scattered over his living room was that Josie had said she loved him.

  She’d sounded so convincing, so sincere after they’d made love. Peter had believed her, still in a rapture from their physical union. But then Al’s warnings, his characterization of her as a sly-shy spy had sprung into Peter’s mind. The realization that she’d purposely set out to seduce him, beginning with her candlelight dinner, made him discount everything she’d said afterward.

  Al had been right all along. Peter was angry with himself for letting down his defenses. A week ago, he would have readily believed and sympathized with everything she’d said, would have felt humbled and downright thrilled to hear her say she loved him. But that was the old, dense, dumb and happy Peter, the one whom women could twist around their finger. When was he going to learn?

  What was that old Irish saying? You’ve got to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather was. Peter’s great-grandfather, his grandfather, and probably his own dad, would all be ashamed of him if they knew how lacking he was in discernment. From now on he was going to take anything any female told him with a grain of salt!

  A pretty grim way to live, he told himself. But there it was. What else could he do, how else could he protect himself from getting kicked in the gut over and over? He’d done the right thing firing Josie last night. He saw that now. Last night he’d still had a few doubts, had still been clinging to some misguided hope that Josie was on the level. It embarrassed him to recall how halfhearted, even confused, he’d felt when he told her she was fired. It just showed how she’d weakened him. What was it Al had said? Something about how Delilah had never looked so good.

  Which reminded him, he ought to call Al and tell him. He went to the phone.

  “Al? How are things at the plant after the earthquake?”

  “Terrific!” Al sounded unusually chipper.

  “No damage?”

  “Some stuff got broken in the lab. Nothing that can’t be replaced. No need for you to come over. Everything’s under control.”

  Peter hadn’t said he was going to the plant, and he wondered why Al had told him not to. Disregarding the remark, he said, “I’ve got a mess here. My bookcases tipped over. I meant to attach them to the wall, but never did. Can you come over and help me set them upright?”

  “Can’t you get one of your brothers-in-law to help? Got my hands full here.”

  “Okay.” Peter was surprised at his reply. He and Al had always helped each other out in the past. “I’ve got some good news for you. I fired Josie last night.”

  Al chuckled triumphantly. “That is good news! Glad to hear it. All systems are go! Take it easy, Pete.” And then he hung up.

  Peter looked at the receiver in his hand after he heard the sharp click that ended the call. Al’s good humor was unusual, to say the least. Especially after the dangerous earthquake they’d just experienced. Al was often abrupt, but this time his rush to end the call seemed odd.

  Peter began to feel uneasy. Even though the worst had happened—Josie had left, and a major earthquake had hit—that feeling of foreboding still hung over him, like a pale, ghostly moon on an eerie night. Was there more to come?

  Don’t be stupid about this, too, he cautioned himself. You’re not psychic!

  A service representative for the security system Peter had installed came by at Peter’s request that afternoon. Since the earthquake, the house alarm had gone off several times for no reason, and Peter had simply shut it off. The young redheaded serviceman figured out the problem and got it working correctly.

  “You want the same code as before?” he asked Peter.

  Peter, sitting in his wheelchair, replied, “No. Let’s change the code.” The repairman cleared the mechanism and turned away as Peter entered a new number. This way Josie, who still had his key, couldn’t get back in without setting off the alarm. When Peter had checked the cottage lab for earthquake damage, he’d noticed that her clothes and suitcase were still in the bedroom. She might come back to get them—and perhaps take with her whatever other information she could carry back to Earthwaves. It was still difficult for Peter to see her as a woman with a covert purpose, a spy—but he had to face the fact. The image of her as a soft, shy, sweet creature who could turn him to mush was something he’d have to ruthlessly crush out of his mind and heart.

  The security man left and Peter went to the kitchen to find the phone book. He ought to have his locks changed, as well, and he needed to look up a locksmith. But his kitchen, with its floor full of broken dishes, looked too treacherous. He had to sweep all that up first, and push the refrigerator back into place. He was heading to the garage to find a broom when his phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Peter? It’s Gary Lindsey. Quite a quake, wasn’t it!”

  Peter smiled. He assumed that Gary, a lawyer and one of Frameworks’ investors, was wondering if the plant had been damaged. “Gary! Good to hear from you. How did the quake affect you?”

  “Not too bad. I live in Trabuco Canyon now and the damage was minimal here. But I hear the retrofit withstood the real thing with flying colors! Congratulations!”

  Peter didn’t know what Gary was talking about. Some instinct told him to pretend he did. “How did you hear?”

  “Al called a little while ago. I guess he’s calling all the investors with the good news. Lucky you had the new material all set up on the test structure. Instead of doing an imitation quake, you got the real McCoy!” Gary laughed. “It’s a sure thing your system will sell now, since it passed the true test so well. I’m glad to be a part of it!”

  Al had told Gary all this? Peter didn’t even know they were ready to do a new test. “I’m glad you are, too.”

  “How are you, by the way? Al said you’re still home and haven’t been able to work much.”

  “I have a lab set up here at home. I’ve been working.”

  “Oh, good! Al didn’t mention that. Yo
u don’t get down to the plant anymore?”

  “Now and then.”

  “I was concerned that your injuries would interfere with your company’s progress, but Al’s filled in for you better than I ever expected him to. You know, I never quite understood him. Still don’t. But it’s the bottom line that counts, right? I hope you’ll be able to get back to the plant soon, Peter. Al’s doing a great job, but…well, I always could communicate better with you.”

  “Thanks, Gary. I appreciate your keeping in touch with me.”

  Peter hung up, feeling as though he were standing on shifting ground. Al had done a test without informing him? And then called the investors to brag about the outcome? He’d talked to Al only a while ago, and he’d said nothing. No wonder his partner was in such a good mood. And no wonder he didn’t want Peter to come down to the plant.

  The painful truth hit Peter between the eyes: Al was maneuvering to take control of the company behind Peter’s back. There had been earlier signs that Peter had chosen to ignore. But now he realized that his partner must be hugely jealous of him, to the point where he was finding ways to edge Peter out of the company. He found it interesting that Gary had decided to call him. Was it to congratulate Peter, or was it because he’d had an underlying feeling that Al was up to something?

  Peter went back into his living room and sat down on one of the leather chairs. Piles of books he’d made while cleaning up surrounded him. He had to stop and think a moment. What should he do about Al? Confront him? Wait a while and see what Al did next? Gather evidence? He was glad he’d never told Al he could walk. He’d never have thought this of his old friend. Peter couldn’t help but wonder now if what Al had said about Josie had in fact come from Al’s jealousy. She was beginning to be competition for him—she’d even come up with a new idea for the retrofit. Al probably hadn’t liked that. Had he planted ideas in Peter’s mind to undermine his trust in her, to get Peter to fire her?

  All at once, the alarm went off. Damn! Peter thought the security guy had fixed the system. But when he opened the front door, he saw Josie at the front gate. Her key had worked; the alarm had gone off because of the new code. Peter pressed the correct buttons on the panel, and the alarm stopped ringing.