One Magic Night

by Larson, Shirley

  "I-yes, fine." She agreed to his arrangement, feeling strangely let down.

  With a smooth, lithe movement, he swung away from her. The black velvet of the hunting jacket shone vividly in the bright light, and she could have clocked the moment it caught his eye. At the door he turned, a faintly amused smile lifting his lips. "Did you catch the fox?"

  She met his eyes, instinctively pulling the belt tighter around her waist. "No. She was too clever for us. She got away." She had a feeling he caught the double meaning in her words.

  "Too bad." His blue eyes gleamed briefly with some undefinable emotion. "Better luck next time." He strode out the door, leaving her with the feeling of being…confused.

  Two hours later, she still had not gone to bed. She was too restless. She sat in the big, overstuffed armchair, every light in the small sitting room on, a book in her hand that she hadn't looked at since she sat down, gazing out into the darkness through the slanted skylights that faced the north on the creek, seeing nothing, her mind numb. When the soft knock came again, she realized she’d been waiting for it.

  He was completely dressed this time, wearing the leather jacket over a soft gauzy shirt of a dark gray color, the expensive shoes on his feet. "I've been watching your light, waiting for it to go off," he said, nodding toward the big skylight windows that threw yellow patches of brilliance on the creek below, "and thought since you were up anyway, I'd return these." He held out the bottle of tablets.

  She took them. "How is-Deke?"

  The well-shaped mouth lifted in a slight smile. "Sleeping like a baby. Your treatment was just what the doctor ordered.''

  "I'm glad." She let her eyes flicker over him. He was dressed to go out, and she wondered where he was going at this hour of the night.

  As if she had spoken her thoughts aloud, he said, "I wasn't so lucky. Can't even close my eyes. I guess that little episode this afternoon bothered me more than I thought it did." He met her gaze steadily. "I keep thinking I could have killed you."

  "But you didn't," she said coolly. "We were both…”

  "Yes." He spun the word out, giving it an emphasis that made her skin prickle. She braced herself, when his shoulder moved dismissively under his jacket and he looked as if he were going to go. But he didn't. "I often go for a walk about this time of night after midnight." A small hesitation. "Would you come out with me? We do need to talk."

  Those cool blue eyes watched her. That classic face betrayed nothing of his thoughts. He must be very good at poker.

  To be wary of him now, at this point, was slightly ridiculous. If he were going to pounce or grab, he would have done it before this. He had the perfect opportunity two hours ago, and he hadn’t done a thing.

  Why did she have this feeling of wanting to know him better? Maybe if she spent some time with him, his attraction would diminish.

  That’s what you’re going to tell yourself? Really? Good luck with that.

  “It will take me a minute or two to get dressed.”

  “I’m in no hurry. I'll wait outside," he murmured, and he left her and walked down the hall, pivoting at the head of the stairs, stretching his long leg past the second riser to avoid that creaking board.

  In one day, he remembered what she’d forgotten after living here a year.

  Ten minutes later, when Leigh stepped out into the chilly night, she was glad she had dressed in warm pants and a quilted ski jacket. She strolled down the walk, wondering where he was. Had he gone without her? A shadow near the trunk of the maple tree moved and he stepped into the dim light of the moon. His chiseled features were even more beautiful in that pale glow.

  "I'm sorry," he said at once, taking her hand. "I didn't mean to frighten you." He held her hand as he might have a child’s. Her breath seemed to cling to her body and refuse to go out again. He was a dark shadow beside her, the impetus of his stride moving her along the worn path that led to the creek.

  Fall scented the air, the fragrance of ripening apples and drying corn making a heady brew. Overhead, stars glittered, their brilliance magnified by the cool crispness.

  In a low voice he said, "The stars seem close." They walked on until they reached the bank of the creek. He seemed to be thinking. “There’s nothing like the sound of water bubbling over rocks.”

  “In the summer, I keep my windows open so I can hear it.”

  “Lucky you. I’ve always wanted to live near water. This little creek is a gem, classic with the weeping willows growing along the bank. It reminds me of one we had on a ranch where I worked in Wyoming.”

  "I thought you were born in Los Angeles."

  "No. I wasn't a show business brat like you. My father worked on a ranch. Still does. He thinks I'm crazy, a black mark on the Rundell name. Meanwhile he spends his life taking orders from some big shot who probably doesn’t know as much about cattle as my dad."

  A faint smile touched her lips. "He wanted you to be a cowboy?"

  "Yeah." There was a harshness in the slowly drawled word.

  "You didn't want that?"

  “Working on somebody else's ranch and snapping to whenever they decided there was work to be done, whether it was one o’clock in the morning or five o’clock on a Sunday afternoon? I wasn’t cut out to be a hired hand. Of course, my ranch hand background came in handy for breaking into stunt work.”

  “I guess it did.” They walked along the path that bordered the creek and the thought of him as a young, ambitious boy in Wyoming with no outlet for his talents dominated her thoughts, but when the shadow of a willow crossed his face and the moon highlighted the dark beauty of his well-shaped head and black hair, she remembered he was no longer a boy striving to break out of the mold; he was a successful writer and producer who moved in the cynical world of show business. She couldn’t let herself feel sorry for him. “Is all this delving into your past supposed to encourage me to talk about mine?”

  “It wasn’t supposed to encourage you to do a damn thing…except listen to a fellow human being talk about the things that keep him awake at night.”

  In the moonlight, her face was pale, her eyes dark shadows. “I don’t feel sorry for you. At least you can be proud of your family. They’re honest, decent people who work for a living. You don’t have to feel your skin crawl every time someone says their name…” Her voice broke.

  "Leigh." He pulled her into his arms and the sweet, smoky scent of his clothes, the hard contours of his body under the leather nearly seduced her into staying there.

  “I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t need your sympathy.”

  “I wasn’t giving you sympathy. I was giving you understanding. Seems to me you’ve had damn little of that in your life.”

  His head shadowed her from the moon, and his mouth came down on hers, soft, coaxing her to relax and take his kiss. She fought the dark, rising tide of desire his mouth created as best she could, but her body wasn’t listening.

  He lifted his head and his face was kind. "I know you, Leigh. I know what you’ve been through. Just let me offer you a little comfort from a fellow human being.” His words were powerful, seductive, and though she fought not to give in, when his mouth hovered over hers once again, her own softened slowly, tentatively, and at last, allowed him access. This is what she’d been looking for in her life, someone who understood her. Ty’s mouth told her he was her match.

  He sensed her surrender and sent his tongue to probe and caress. An elemental excitement poured through her veins. His intimate kiss was a heady champagne that both satisfied, yet made her thirsty. His hands found the zipper of her jacket, and he ran it down and spread his fingers over her back to pull her against him more tightly. She wore only a light cotton T-shirt, and the warmth and strength of his hands burned through the thin material, exploring, discovering the place on her back where there should have been a bra clip and wasn't.

  His own jacket hung open, and the crush of his body on her breasts and the intimate way he cradled his hips to hers tantalized her with the h
eady thought that lying under him would be sheer ecstasy…

  "No. You don’t know me. No one does." A willow twig snapped under her foot. The sound cracked in the silent night.

  "Wait a minute." A hand on her shoulder caught her, turned her around. "One minute you're acting like a normal human being, and the next, you’re a horse with a bur under its saddle."

  "What's the matter?" She lifted her head and stared at him in the dark, seeing nothing but a tall, angry shape. "Didn't your little game plan work the way you thought it would? Didn't Claire Foster's daughter fall into your arms the way she was supposed to?"

  "What are you talking about?"

  Pale with anger, her body tense under the hand to that still held her, she said, "I'm talking about your grand plan to seduce Claire Foster's daughter. After all, she ought to be worth it. Her mother was the most celebrated lay in Hollywood."

  “Leigh, stop it. You can’t think I’d be that calculating. There is no grand plan. There are just two people, enjoying the moonlight.”

  "Was that what it was?"

  He held her for a moment, and then he said, "We need to talk about this."

  "There's nothing to talk about."

  "Oh, yes, there is.”

  “All right. Just let go of me."

  He did as she asked. She was free. “I can’t let you walk away from me thinking I was that…heartless…or stupid." His voice was as crisp and cool as the air that moved over her cheek. “Maybe a cup of coffee in your apartment might be more conducive to reasonable conversation.”

  “I’m all for reasonable conversation,” she said, surprising him.

  “I’m glad to hear it.” He didn't touch her again. The brisk walk back through the chilly air had the effect of a cold shower on Leigh, and by the time they had climbed the stairs and she unlocked the door, she was reasonably in control.

  She turned on the lights quickly, dispelling any illusion of intimacy. She crossed to the kitchenette and filled the carafe with clean water and was pouring it through when she heard the click of the door that told her he had come inside and closed it.

  The small round kitchen table was loaded down with her book bag and the pile of papers that had to be read and corrected before Monday. She pushed them aside and made two places, laying out placemats and cups and saucers.

  "Don't fuss."

  "I'm not," she said shortly, keeping her back to him, searching for the paper napkins in a middle drawer. She found them, they were pink, left over from the Easter dinner she had served Hunt. She folded them in neat triangles and tucked them under the spoons.

  Her voice cool and polite, she asked, "Milk or sugar?"

  "Just milk."

  The water had dripped through, and she flipped the switch, turning on the warmer. She lifted the carafe and turned to the table to pour the steaming brown liquid into the cups.

  There was nothing left to do but sit down beside him. He had already seated himself, and he looked completely at home, lounging on the wooden chair with his feet thrust forward, stretched to full length and crossed at the ankles.

  As she waited for him to say something, she slipped out of her jacket and hung it over the back of her chair. He didn't speak, didn't even seem to be watching her. She might have been in the room by herself. She took a sip of coffee, swallowed it, and could stand it no longer. "I thought you wanted to talk to me."

  He glanced up, one dark eyebrow arched in amusement. "I thought I'd wait until you're ready to listen."

  "I'm ready," she said.

  He gazed at her. "Leigh, I'd like to be able to tell you that I'm giving up the project." He paused, his blue eyes holding hers.

  "But you're not going to," she said.

  "No." The word was drawled in a cool tone. "Your reaction to me makes it imperative that I go on."

  She shot him a hot, angry look. "What's that supposed to mean?"

  He leaned back in the chair, his lashes half concealing the piercing blueness of his eyes. "Hasn't it occurred to you that you aren't the only child of a celebrity in the world? Think about the tragedy of Scott Newman's suicide. There are other people like you, Leigh, people who struggle with a burden so damn heavy they can hardly carry it. I've already talked to some of them. Maybe if the people were made aware of the problems facing the children of celebrities…"

  "I’m perfectly all right."

  He let his eyes travel slowly around the room. "Is this what you call being all right? Hiding away on the top floor of a rooming house, drowning yourself in school work, and going out with a man old enough to be your father?"

  Her gray eyes went luminescent with challenge. "I didn’t know this conversation was going to be about my life.”

  “What you have isn’t a life. You’re hiding from any semblance of a life.”

  “What makes you think you’re qualified to tell me about my life…”

  He pulled her up out of the chair, planted his hard mouth on hers and released her, all within the time span of an instant.

  She raised a hand to the mouth that tingled with the blood his kiss brought pulsing to the surface. "Was that supposed to prove something?"

  "I don't have to prove anything to you. You betray yourself every time I touch you," he said in a soft tone. "Think about that. I certainly will." Before she could move or speak, he crossed the room with his long stride and let himself out the door.

  She wanted to throw the cups at the door after him, but she didn't. Instead, she rose out of the chair, went to the door, chain-locked it, and escaped into her bedroom. Mechanically, she stepped out of her clothes and donned her nightgown, a light pink brushed cotton that she had bought for the cool nights up in the Adirondacks when she'd stayed with Dean for a month. Shaking with nerves, she lay down on the bed. Ty Rundell was wrong about her, of course. He was a predator, a self-serving, egotistical specimen who fed on the misery of other people to make his living and, in the process, convinced himself he was some kind of grand humanist, solving the problems of the entire human race. She had seen his kind before, when she was very young, but hadn't understood about scavengers. She had been in awe of anyone who was creative, the writers in particular had caught her young imagination. Until she was thirteen and had stupidly confided to her mother that she thought one man in particular was "super." The next night she had been restless, thirsty, unable to sleep, and had gotten out of bed. She had not turned on any lights, and when she reached the hall, she heard the voice of the man she had admired talking in low tones with her mother. "Claire, my God, you're beautiful. Your breasts are ivory perfection."

  Her mother's voice had sounded cool, almost blasé. "What a way you have with words, darling. It's no wonder all the women fall for you."

  "What women?” the words were half-muffled. Leigh had crept around the corner and saw them then, her mother half lying on the cushions of the long cream sofa, her designer dress unbuttoned to the waist, her much-praised skin gleaming in the soft light of one lamp, the man Leigh had thought wonderful leaning over her, his lips pressed against an ivory breast.

  "My understudy, for one, and my hairdresser, for another." Her mother had laughed softly. "Why, even my daughter thinks you're quite something."

  "Your daughter?" He said the words as if he couldn't remember Leigh existed. Then he groaned and raised his head. "You can't think I'd ever be interested in her," was the muffled answer. "She's a carbon copy, a dull child who happens to look like you. You're a beautiful, gorgeous original who has no equal."

  Her mother's soft laugh had been husky, satisfied. She had elicited the praise she lived for. "I've never been with a man who could be eloquent and aroused at the same time. It's quite a novelty." The light gleamed off the golden polish of her mother's long, sleekly manicured fingernails as she threaded them through the dark strands of hair Leigh had thought so attractive. "You are aroused, aren't you, darling?"

  His groan was throaty, disturbed. "Claire. You must know what you're doing to me…"

  Leigh had cr
ept back to her room, sickened and destroyed in a way she hardly understood. It was only years later, when her mother grew older and her fame lessened, that the obsessive need to seduce every male in sight, especially those who cast an eye over Claire's young, attractive daughter, was so evident even Leigh could see it. But that was much later. The first time, young as she was, she had understood only on a subconscious level. Careful after that night not to express admiration for any male in front of her mother, she told Claire that she hated men. Her mother had only laughed, but she had believed Leigh, because she wanted to. "Leigh's little hang-up" Claire labeled it, secretly delighted because it removed Leigh from the competition.

  Leigh played her part well…until Dean. With him, she almost overdid it-and cheated herself out of a friend.

  She and Claire had been driving through the mountains on a rare motor trip, and their car had broken down in Tupper Lake. Dean had fixed it and taken them to dinner. During the meal, Dean had to be told who Claire Foster was. That endeared him to Leigh from the first, but she told her mother she thought he was boring, and for the first time, her mother seemed to agree. But Dean's virile masculinity and his cool self-assurance cast a potent spell over Claire. Their marriage had shocked and angered Leigh, until she discovered that Dean was as determined to accept her as the daughter he had wanted and never had, as she was to push him away.

  For nearly a year she resisted. But in the end, her mother, bored and restless, had left and Leigh stayed. Under a mature man's care for the first time in her life, she began to relax and enjoy the kind of loving protection that Dean's special brand of caring provided. He made it possible for her to achieve a peace within herself, and a life of her own-independent of her mother's.

  Thinking about Dean, remembering the quiet times of sitting around the campfire, roasting marshmallows till they ignited, waving the fire out and pulling the sticky charred remains off the stick to eat with her fingers, she decided she would call him tomorrow. Her mind relaxed, she fell asleep.