The Marriage Merger

by Leiber, Vivian

But the woman standing on the sidewalk looked...

  “Dangerous,” Gascon said. “You’re playing a very dangerous game.”

  Gascon was the only friend Sam had confided in concerning his engagement.

  “I’m just beginning to realize just how dangerous.”

  “But it’s a beautiful danger,” Gascon said. “Now, out of my shop. I face danger of my own kind if I don’t get home.”

  “Bill me for today?”

  Gascon shrugged. Sam walked out onto the fiery hot sidewalk.

  Sam had gone out with models and actresses, so he was used to a woman who ignored strangers’ primitive tributes to beauty. Patricia seemed flustered, even embarrassed—especially when a man in a passing car hung out the driver’s-side window and shouted “Baby, I love you!” She seemed utterly inexperienced at getting so much attention—in fact, she looked like she was in agony.

  “My car’s parked on the next block,” he said, taking her arm since she looked as if she might bolt. “Sorry I’m late. I was on the phone with Vail. The stores are closing, so we’ll have to buy a gown for the party tomorrow. I thought we’d have some dinner and, if you’re up to it, we could go to my house. I have a collection of Pueblo artwork that you should see. Rex helped me select two items from a charity auction last month.”

  He was just about to tell her more when he noticed a familiar figure at the news kiosk on the next block. Mildred Van Hess with her nose in a copy of Phoenix Life. At least it looked like Mildred. The professional suit draped at the kneecap, the subtle bouffant, the trim figure. Had to be her. If he could just steer Patricia around the next corner.... Suddenly, Mildred looked up as if a hunting dog sensing the presence of her master’s prey.

  No time to run for cover.

  “Patricia, I hope you’ll forgive me for what I’m about to do.”

  He grabbed her around her waist, tugged hard to his chest and kissed her. Really kissed her. She startled, twisted her head as if to get away, and he steadied her with his fingers at the back of her head. Gascon’s long afternoon’s work was mined in an instant as cascades of curls tumbled out of their pins. She moaned, and suddenly surrendered to his kiss. Opened her mouth to take his tongue and he found himself kissing for the pleasure of it—barely remembering that he was doing this for the benefit of Rex’s trusted assistant. It wasn’t until he relinquished her that Patricia remembered she was on a crowded thoroughfare—otherwise, she would have begged for more. She looked up into his eyes and saw warmth mingled with surprise.

  Had he come to his senses? Had he spent last night tossing and turning just as she had? Had he figured out that she loved him and had he realized the same for himself?

  How else to explain his sudden impulsive kiss?

  “Sorry,” he said, glancing over her shoulder.

  “Oh, no, Sam, I should tell you that I’ve always felt like...”

  She noticed he wasn’t listening, that his eyes were gazing far away.

  “Good, she’s gone.”

  She felt just like a balloon popping.

  “Who’s gone?”

  “Mildred Van Hess.”

  “Mildred? What would she be doing around here?”

  “I swear I saw her. She was standing at the kiosk.”

  “But it’s just past five—she wouldn’t leave the office earlier than six or seven.”

  “I’m surprised too, but I could have sworn that was her. No, don’t look now. She saw us and I kissed you when she looked up. There. She’s across Alejandro—and now she’s in that shoe store. If it’s her.”

  He let go of her.

  Humiliated and confused, Patricia tried to put back together the hairdo Gascon had worked so hard to create.

  “Leave it,” Sam said. “It looks great either way. Thanks for being a good sport about letting me kiss you. I saw her but didn’t have enough time to warn you.”

  “No problem,” Patricia said quietly. She could kick herself. What a fool she was to think that Sam would notice her—even with three hours of manicuring, hairstyling, makeup and new clothes.

  Good sport? He called her a good sport?

  It would take more—although, with her lack of experience, she had no idea what the “more” was.

  The kiss had affected her much more than it had him. She blinked away a tear and squeezed her finger against the corners of each eye so that the thin layer of mascara wouldn’t run.

  “Ready for dinner?” Sam asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Friends?” He held out his hand.

  Maybe this is all I’ll ever have with him, Patricia thought. And she knew that as much as she loved Sam, she also liked him. If all he had to offer was friendship, she still could be...

  “Friends.”

  They shook.

  No, she thought, she wouldn’t give up. That kiss was just the beginning....

  Driving to the El Matedor with Sam’s BMW’s top down disassembled what remained of Gascon’s work—but the mark of the stylist’s genius was such that when the valet opened the passenger door and Patricia stepped out, a quick toss of her hair created the same effect many women spent hours at the stylist to achieve.

  Dinner was suitably delicious—Patricia relaxed as she realized this was little different than the many business dinners and quick take-out meals they had shared together.

  Of course, Sam didn’t usually have trouble stringing words together to make complete sentences. And Sam didn’t usually lose his train of thought and simply say “Wow” at odd intervals.

  Of course, he could be tired. Patricia certainly was. It had been an exhausting two days, so when Sam suggested that they go to his home after dessert, she nearly said no. A glance at her watch confirmed that it was after ten.

  But Rex’s retirement party was the coming evening, and if she was going to talk intelligently about the Pueblo art that Rex had encouraged Sam to buy, she’d better see it now.

  The desert air was cool and crisp. The drive was soothing and she took little notice of how her thoughts drifted to nothingness. When he pulled onto the private lane leading to his house, she didn’t hide her admiration.

  The architecture was Spanish Colonial, pale stucco walls roofed in clay.

  “I bought it five years ago,” Sam explained. “It hadn’t been lived in for nearly twenty years. I fixed it up, starting with the broken clay pipes and evicting the roadrunners and jackrabbits living in the attic. I hired half the folks from my old neighborhood to pull it together.”

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. They got out of the car and walked across the cobblestone courtyard to the heavy mesquite door.

  “Tell Rex you’ve always loved the fountain,” Sam said, pointing to a cherub spouting water from its mouth into a grassy pond. “He bought me that as a housewarming present.”

  “I’ll remember,” Patricia promised.

  He unlocked the door and escorted her into a tiled foyer. He flipped the switch to a twelve-armed iron chandelier hanging from the living room ceiling.

  “Have a seat,” he suggested, throwing his keys onto a Mexican altar table that served as a console. “I’ll make us some coffee.”

  What looked most comfortable—a long, chintz-covered chaise—turned out to be most comfortable. Its plush cushions were stuffed with down. Patricia pulled her dress down as low as it would go and kicked off her heels.

  She heard Sam as if from a long distance away—running water, opening and closing a refrigerator, calling to her to inquire if she took cream or sugar. She didn’t answer immediately, because it seemed to take a great effort to remember that she didn’t even drink coffee.

  She thought Sam was talking to her, telling her that he was such an oaf to have kept her up past her bedtime.

  His scent seemed so much more vivid than it did when she was...dreaming.

  She was going to get her man.

  This was the time, this was the week—beck, this was the night.

  Chapter Seven

  “Sam, I love yo
u,” she murmured. “I always have.”

  He growled, low in his throat.

  Desire—satisfied once, twice, three times through the night—moved him to knead the soft compliant flesh of her hips.

  He smelled of musk and passion and coffee....

  Coffee?

  Patricia sniffed the sharp scent of coffee touched by chocolate. She stretched, feeling light-as-air silk sheets caressing her naked legs.

  I haven’t had such a good night’s sleep in... She opened her eyes and sat bolt upright.

  Oh, dear, what had she done?

  The spacious bedroom she found herself in was bathed in a rose-colored glow—through ivory lace curtains sunlight dappled the sponged walls. The bed was intricately carved teak covered by a Navaho print blanket. In the corner of the room was a mission chest of drawers and a Tiffany-style lamp. A collection of sports trophies and ribbons were displayed on three shelves jutting out of the wall. An ocotillo-branch-shuttered window overlooked the downstairs great room.

  Unmistakably this was Sam’s bedroom.

  What had she done? What had he done?

  Her memory of the previous evening was as clear as a bell, up to and including waiting in Sam’s chair for a cup of coffee—but she couldn’t remember getting into bed.

  With him? Without him?

  Although the dress Gascon had picked out for her, now hiked up around her hips, had never had enough fabric to make what she would consider a suitable guest towel, the fact that the dress was still on her, zippered up to the top, and her panties were on her hips gave her some measure of comfort.

  Even as she came to the contradictorily disappointing conclusion that nothing, nothing at all had happened.

  But there was the dream. And though she often dreamt of him, dreams she would never reveal to anyone under the most daunting torture, she was certain that last night’s dream was somehow different.

  More vivid. More certain.

  More real?

  If it was real, then he must know.

  Know everything.

  Everything about her, not just the stuff they could talk about over a dinner table.

  Did he think she was a freak? A woman on the shelf past her sell-by date? A dried-up spinster—to use an old-fashioned term?

  Worse, did he think she was an innocent who couldn’t be his match?

  I gotta get out of here and do some serious thinking, she decided, standing up and giving her dress a good sharp tug. Shoes. Purse. Keys. Nothing.

  She looked under the bed, on top of the chest of drawers, under the blanket she had so forcefully thrown back. She even crawled up under the bed.

  “Finding everything you need?” Sam asked.

  She whirled and stood, taking care to jerk the hem of her dress over her panties. He lounged at the doorjamb, wearing khakis and a gently faded orange polo shirt. The cup of coffee in his hand looked tempting. It might clear her head.

  Her head definitely needed clearing. How could she ask him if and if so, how was it?

  “How do you...feel this morning?” she asked, standing up and taking the coffee.

  “Well rested.” He beamed. “I hadn’t realized how tense I had been all week with this Rex matter. With all that tension relieved, I feel great. How ’bout you?”

  Patricia stared.

  “Tension relief? Last night was tension relief?”

  “Oh. yeah,” he agreed happily. “I felt better than I have in weeks.”

  “So it’s just a physical thing.”

  Sam licked his lower lip.

  “Sure. Of course it is. Why would it be anything else?”

  “Don’t you ever feel any...reverence for it?”

  Sam thought long and hard.

  “You know, I must. Because I’ve always thought I have to have a good pillow.”

  “I gotta go,” she snapped, tugging her hair back into a no-nonsense ponytail and then discovering that she didn’t have a scrunchie—not even a rubber band. She let her hair fall around her shoulders and decided from his appreciative gaze that she was only making matters worse.

  “I thought I knew you, Sam,” she said.

  “You did. But now we know each other better.”

  “Is that all that last night was—knowing each other better? And physical tension relief?”

  “Great combination, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m gone.”

  “I’ll drive you back to Gascon’s to pick up your car,” he said, shrugging amiably. “Want some breakfast first?”

  “I think I should go. Now.”

  She squeezed past him.

  “Patricia, are you all right?” he asked, following her downstairs into the living room. “You seem...agitated. Do you want to reconsider this deal? I could call Rex at home right now and explain that Melissa and I broke up and that she won’t be coming to the retirement party.”

  “I’m fine,” she insisted.

  Sure I’m fine. I’ve just discovered that the man I’ve apparently given my virginity to—what an old-fashioned phrase but it’s so true!—thinks making love to me is the equivalent of a hearty thirty minutes on the exercise bike or twenty in the whirlpool.

  Oh, Patricia Peel, how could you be so foolish? You were always the smart and sensible type.

  One shoe was by the couch. She got down on her hands and knees to look for the other.

  “I can’t remember anything about last night!” she wailed, giving in to frustration.

  “What’s there to remember?” Sam asked. “We had dinner, we came back here.”

  “It’s the ‘came back here’ part that I can’t remember! The physical tension relief part.”

  “You mean sleep?”

  “Before that.”

  “There wasn’t any before that.”

  She looked up from her perusal of the underside of his couch. She was about to tell him that there was a quarter under there, as well as a paperback and a pencil. Informing him of the location of household objects would have to wait.

  “Nothing happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “As in really nothing?”

  “Absolutely really nothing.”

  She should feel happy. Pleased. Relieved—physically or mentally or both.

  Instead she felt oddly let down.

  “Not even an itsy bitsy opposite of nothing?”

  “No. You went to sleep.”

  “I know that part.”

  “In the chair, right there.”

  She glared accusingly at the chair as if it were to blame.

  “And then what?” she asked, lunging for the shoe that peeked out from under the upholstery.

  “And then I thought you’d get a crick in your neck sleeping there, so I carried you to the bed.”

  “You carried me?” The images that went through Patricia’s mind smacked of Gone with the Wind. But involved a lot less fabric than Scarlet’s dress. “In your arms?”

  “Tough to do with my feet.”

  She stood up, shoving her toes into her shoes and picked up another four inches in height. Still, she had to tilt her head back to meet his gaze. How had Gascon persuaded her to give up her sensible heels for stilettos? Stilettos that were impossible last night and not any easier today.

  “And then nothing.” He put down the coffee cup on the hutch and steadied her balance. “I went to sleep in the guest room.”

  “You did? Is that where the tension release comes in?”

  “Best night of sleep I’ve gotten in a week,” Sam said. “Patricia, you think I would take advantage of you? Of our friendship?”

  Actually, no.

  But now she wondered if she should worry that he hadn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, letting her shoulders relax. “I was a little confused. Waking up in a man’s house, your house. I’m sorry.”

  “Try this.”

  He gave her the coffee and with a strong, sure hand beneath her elbow, guided her through sliding glass doors to the patio that overlo
oked the desert valley. He offered her a cushioned rattan chaise by the kidney-shaped pool. The water looked cool and soothing.

  “I was just finishing up preparing breakfast,” he said. “I’ll bring it out here. We have another hour before the heat sets in.”

  Patricia Peel, get a grip on yourself, she thought as he disappeared through the shuttered doors to the kitchen. She sipped her chocolate-laced coffee and breathed in the sun-baked desert air. A whisper-weight wind, scented with the late blooming succulent flowers and cooled by the night, drifted from the mountains.

  She was used to dreaming about Sam and then having to put her dreams in a precious little box during the day—she just wasn’t used to doing the dreaming in his bed and putting the dreams in a box while he watched!

  Sam returned with a tray laden with two plates of fruit, thick toast and eggs scrambled with sausage and hot peppers. Patricia felt composed enough to help out by getting the pitcher of orange juice and two glasses from the kitchen counter.

  “To tonight,” Sam said, touching his glass to hers. “The retirement party. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to you. Whatever I can do for you in return, name it.”

  “Sam, no, I’m not that mercenary.”

  “I know that, but is there anything in return you want?”

  “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.

  “No?”

  “Well, okay, something.”

  “Name it,” he said, setting his jaw sternly. “It’s yours.”

  “I want one of your shirts because I don’t feel quite dressed this morning. Gascon’s idea of hem length is rather indecent.”

  “Patricia, darling, where have you been?” Her mother’s question was the first thing Patricia heard when she picked up the phone. “I’ve been calling all night.”

  “Mother, I’m sorry, I just walked in the door.”

  “It’s one o’clock in the afternoon,” her mother said, continuing without the slightest trace of maternal pique, “I sure hope you were having fun.”

  “I was at...at a friend’s house.”

  “Is your friend male?”

  “Well, yes, but I slept most of the time.”

  “Oh, heavens, I wish you’d move to Paris. Frenchmen are not nearly so boring as Americans.”

  “Mother, it’s not like that,” Patricia said, flipping through the caller ID screen. Her mother’s Paris number showed up twenty-four times.