The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes

by Jennifer Crusie

  ‘You have a prison surrounded by a big garden.’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ she whispered, her voice suddenly hoarse. ‘You don’t know what Xan really is.’

  ‘I’m not talking about Xan.’

  ‘Then what?’

  He bent over so he could face her eye to eye and took her face in his hands. ‘Not everyone hides her passion in the attic, Dee. Come out into the sunlight.’

  ‘As what?’ she asked, pulling away. ‘I can be a bulldog. Or maybe a seagull, except nobody really wants them around, no matter how cute they are.’

  He ran a finger down her cheek, setting off sparks all the way down her arm.

  ‘As the woman who painted those paintings.’

  He brought her to a stop. They’ll see me.

  Danny frowned. ‘Who’ll see you?’ Dee started. ‘You’re doing it again.’

  ‘Then maybe I am psychic. Tell me, Dee. Who’ll see you?’

  She drew in a deep breath, struggling to quell the hot rush of tears that crowded the back of her throat. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She watched the street.

  The Dollar Dayz took up a corner of Main near the highway, a graceless stretch of fast food and strip malls. She’d painted it in shades of umber and gray. ‘Do you know what a nightmare it was to be Delightful Dee-Dee? To never have privacy? To have strangers think they had the right to you? Those paintings are…’ She picked at a loose button on her cardigan. ‘They’re me.’ She knew her voice was small. ‘I should have the right to say who I share them with.’

  Gently Danny lifted her face. ‘You showed them to me.’

  The button came off in her hand. ‘You don’t understand them, either’

  ‘I understand that they’re the product of an amazing, beautiful, talented woman who should be able to share her vision with the world. I understand that I want her to smile more and worry less. That I’ve been thinking about wandering the world with her just so I can watch her paint my favorite places, because I can’t even imagine how they’ll look through her eyes.’

  How could something that sweet hurt so much?

  Danny took her by the arms. ‘The rest doesn’t matter, Dee. I promise.’

  Damn. The tears were swelling, searing her throat and forcing her to swallow. She nodded. ‘I promise you. It does.’

  ‘Then make love with me. As the woman who paints those paintings.’

  For a minute Dee couldn’t manage a single syllable. She could barely see him through the tears she kept sniffing back. ‘You don’t believe in her. And I don’t think you’d like her’

  ‘I have the courage to try. And I don’t think I’m going to be disappointed. Do you?’

  There was no air to breathe. Her heart hammered like an off-balance washing machine. Dee opened her mouth twice before she could answer. ‘Will you promise me something?’

  ‘My life, my wealth, my body.’

  ‘If you suddenly see somebody you recognize, just close your eyes?’

  His laugh was sharp. ‘You do make life interesting, Dee.’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘I promise. But I’m not inviting anybody to this party but you.’

  His eyes were so sweet. So very dear and bright and clear. Dee sighed. ‘You may be surprised by who shows up.’

  ‘And you’ll make love to me without consideration of whether Xan is confronted or not. Or whether your sisters are having man troubles or Xan troubles or tattoo troubles. I assume they got them, too.’

  Dee gaped. ‘How did you know?’

  He grinned. ‘Because I know you’d never do that on your own. But you’d do anything for your sisters. Now, are you agreed?’

  ‘Where? When?’

  ‘Dee,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘We’re not scheduling a root canal. These things are better done spontaneously.’

  ‘Not in my house they aren’t. Lately, you just don’t know what’s going to happen there. Besides, I really, really don’t want any surprises. Well, more than are inevitable.’

  Her heart picked up even more speed. She was damp all the way down her back. She shook like a terrier, and a fire burned in her chest that threatened to melt her.

  Oh, God. She was going to try.

  With Danny James. Her lover.

  Well, there was no better way to spit in Xan’s face. If both of them survived, anyway.

  ‘The mountain,’ she blurted out.

  Danny took a second to consider. ‘I like it. Dancing up with the witches. It’s just about Beltane, isn’t it? I know the moon’s almost full. Doesn’t sex play a big part in the celebration?’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Researcher, remember? We’re all frustrated Jeopardy champs. I say we go right now. After all, my policy is to never put off something you want to do. Only the things you have to do.’

  She giggled like a nervous virgin. ‘It’s only five. A bit of discretion from the local personal banker is always a good idea.’

  ‘On the other hand, if you shatter your reputation like cheap ceramic, it’ll give you the excuse to take up painting full-time.’

  ‘I don’t want to traumatize the girls.’

  ‘Are you kidding? The girls are going to throw a parade in my honor’

  ‘I beg your pardon.’

  Reaching over, he pulled off her current rubber band and sent her hair flying. ‘You,’ he said, dangling the limp oval before her, ‘need to let your hair down more.’

  She wanted to giggle again, but she was too breathless. He was smiling, but his eyes gleamed hot. His eyes took the stuffing out of her knees.

  ‘Also, when we’re traveling the world, being sybaritic and feckless, I absolutely forbid you to wear cardigans. Math teachers wear cardigans. You will wear silk and linen and the odd feather in your hair.’

  ‘On a researcher’s salary?’

  He kissed her nose. ‘I’m going to live on your art. Clever, don’t you think?’

  She nodded again. She was beyond fear. Somewhere between anticipation and terror, she thought. And before she’d even so much as shed her shirt.

  He pulled her against him. ‘Kiss me to seal the deal?’

  Dee took another anxious look around. ‘Right here?’

  ‘It’s part of proving how brave you are.’ He blew gently in her ear. And how feckless.’

  Dee was glad he had a hold on her. Her knees failed again. Her nipples snapped to attention and showers of sparks washed down her neck. He was smiling down at her as if she were the last drink on a desert. She couldn’t have looked away if Xan had tapped her on the shoulder.

  She managed to lift her face and smile back. It was all the invitation Danny needed. Dee thought she heard a sigh of relief from him as he bent to her.

  Dee had been kissed before. Good kisses, bad kisses, kisses that curled her toes. In all the history of kisses, though, none was more perfect. His lips were so soft she wanted to lick them. His whiskers chafed her skin. His eyes, open so she couldn’t mistake him, darkened to midnight.

  He didn’t just kiss her. He claimed her, his mouth ravenous, his hand curled behind her head, his other arm wrapped so tightly around her she had no room for escape. He branded her with his lips and his tongue and his breath, and Dee couldn’t bear the idea of stopping. She raised her arms and wrapped her hands around his neck, and oh, yes, his hair was just as silky as she’d hoped. And fun to winnow her fingers through. Just another color of sensuality; damson maybe, rich and deep and delicious.

  For the kiss she’d use vermilion. Hot and sweet and impossible to turn from. Dee dined on that kiss. She let Danny plunder her lips and then returned the favor. She traced the tiny scar she hadn’t noticed at the edge of his mouth, and nibbled at his lower lip like a forbidden sweet. And his tongue. Oh, she couldn’t think of a thing that could give proper homage to his clever tongue. He sought out every part of her mouth, tracing ridge and hollow and the sweeping slope of her tongue. And then he returned to engage it in an unbearably erotic dance.
/>   Dee lost track of time and place and propriety in that kiss. She felt him harden against her and envisioned them skin to skin. She didn’t ever want to stop. She wanted to wallow in the sudden glow of her own body. She was nothing but liquid and light, and only one thing could have brought her up short.

  Her body warned her. It wasn’t insistent yet, but it was obvious. A hot ember that lodged right behind her breastbone and flared to life. It kept expanding until she thought it would consume her, a pulsing, living lucency that seemed to coalesce in her belly. Her very cells began to hum. She jerked back, pushing at his chest. ‘No…’

  Danny was panting like a long distance runner. ‘Oh, yes.’ He was smiling, the rat.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said instinctively, giving him another little push.

  He let her go without hesitation. ‘You’re not allowed to apologize. Official Feckless rules.’

  She shook her head, trying to get her breathing and heart rate back under control. She wanted nothing more than to grab him by the ears and pull him back into that kiss. She wanted to go down on him like a hooker. She wanted. She sucked in a series of calming breaths, and inevitably the glow faded to safety. It made her want to cry again. She wanted to go up the mountain so badly.

  Danny tucked a couple of curls behind her ear. ‘You want to go to Bicksburg now?’

  She blinked, still trying to pull her senses together. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Are you kidding? I’m going to spend every second we’re there fantasizing about what crimes we’re going to commit on that mountain tonight.’

  He didn’t just fantasize. He aided and abetted. In Bicksburg he bought her a red feather boa. In Martinsville it was scented warm body oil. Citrus. An odd choice, Dee thought until Danny told her he liked his pleasures tangy and tart. Like her.

  While Dee was checking out the Burns Bridge B and B, Danny was at the Sweet Tooth confectioner getting liqueur truffles. And next door to the Motor 8, he found a string of pop beads.

  ‘Okay, I wanted pearls,’ he told her as they sat in Miss Mamie’s Tea Parlor for dinner. ‘But we’ll have to settle for these.’

  Dee pulled the beads apart and then reattached them with a lovely, well, popping noise. ‘You want me to wear a necklace of hot-pink pop beads when we make love?’

  Danny’s grin was purely salacious. ‘Honey, they’re not going to be anywhere near your neck.’

  Dee was sure she was a fluorescent shade of crimson. ‘Oh.’

  But oddly enough, it was Xan who furnished the best accessory. After a long day of not even coming close to finding her, Dee gave up and asked Danny to run by the house. It was sundown, and the storm still threatened. The temperatures ahead of it had risen unnaturally, so that she’d even ditched her cardigan by about four. But it was almost dark now, and Dee had plans.

  She was so hungry. So anxious. So damned ready. No matter what, she was going to walk up that mountain and see this through. She might have a spectacular flameout, but she might actually succeed. The only way she’d know for sure was by taking the chance.

  So, Danny’s saddlebags loaded with everything from whiskey to a lovely suede French tickler, just in case one of them got spunky, he pulled up to the gate and shut off the motor. Dee swung off the bike and almost stumbled. Something hit her from behind. Something soft, like a wash of air from an open oven. She spun around, wondering what Danny had done now, but he was checking something on his front wheel.

  Suddenly there was a rustle in the bushes, and Py let out the most incredibly soulful yowl Dee had ever heard. His call set up a veritable glee club from hell all up and down the block.

  ‘Pywackt?’ Dee called, shoving open the gate.

  ‘Seems to have quite a following,’ Danny said, looking up the street. ‘Must be all that Edith Piaf.’

  It wasn’t just the cats, though. Dogs howled. Birds chattered and trilled. A veritable squadron of rabbits was suddenly doing maneuvers on the Ortballs’ yard, and the Coxes’ Chihuahua could be seen nuzzling the Nelsons’ Saint Bernard. Dee kept turning in circles, wondering at the sudden heat that was crawling down her spine, at the softening of the stormy air so that it seemed the sun shone anyway. Damn, her flowers were multiplying again, and it was almost dark out.

  Her first thought was that Lizzie had had another experiment go wrong. She checked the chimney, but there wasn’t any new smoke. She couldn’t blame Mare. She certainly couldn’t blame herself. She didn’t do that kind of stuff.

  ‘Is that Frank Sinatra?’ Danny asked.

  Dee cocked an ear to hear the vague tunes above the caterwauling. And Michael Bolton and Andrea Bocelli and Liza Minnelli. And, wait for it… yes. Barry White. Every neighbor on the block must be getting in the mood.’

  And the Foleys next door were well into their eighties. But that was definitely their silhouette in their front window.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Danny marveled.

  ‘Me, too. Mr Foley’s been in a wheelchair for a month.’

  Her own senses were heightened. She could hear Danny breathing as if he were whispering in her ear again. She could smell that wonderful soap and man musk on him, and his power signature had strengthened. Not just an approaching storm, but one about to break. She could see the pale glow of his eyes, and couldn’t bear to turn away.

  She was suddenly aching and hot and hungry. She took a look at the oak tree next door and thought how delicious it would be to scrape her back against that bark as Danny took her against it, driving hard into her until her skin was raw and everybody on the block heard her screaming.

  ‘Dee,’ Danny said from right behind her. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  He wrapped those wonderful long-fingered hands around her breasts. Dee sucked in a desperate breath. ‘Probably not,’ she had to admit. Then she closed her eyes and savored every stroke of his fingers.

  ‘I’m thinking I might not make the mountain. What are you thinking?’

  She sighed. ‘That Aunt Xan’s sent out a libido spell.’

  Well, there went his hands. ‘Now, Dee. Everything isn’t from your Aunt Xan.’

  ‘No, but I can guarantee this is. The Foleys haven’t spoken to each other since he had an affair with her sister fifteen years ago. Besides, they both loathe Sinatra. They listen to polka music’

  Danny looked over to where the silhouette was gyrating to ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight.’ And you really believe it’s a… libido spell.’

  Py set up another grating racket, making Dee wince. ‘Yeah. When we were younger, we tried a libido spell for me. We hoped it would improve my results. It didn’t. But I know the feeling. Only Aunt Xan’s is much stronger. Either that or it’s just exacerbating the fact that I’m already horny enough to howl.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Well, what do you plan to do about it?’

  Dee laughed so hard three of the rabbits stopped and turned to look. ‘Are you kidding? Say thank you and head up the mountain.’

  Mare had walked back to Value Video!! in time to see William moping in the storeroom. ‘Go eat something,’ she said and sent him to the diner, in no mood for any more depression. Then she’d taken her Styrofoam out to the counter and found Jude talking sternly to Dreama, who looked rebellious.

  ‘Ciao, Mare!’ Jude said.

  ‘Now what?’ Mare said to Dreama.

  ‘I caught Dreama making a personal phone call,’ Jude said stiffly.

  ‘I called Algy,’ Dreama said.

  ‘That wasn’t a personal phone call,’ Mare said to Jude. ‘Stop being such a damn bean counter.’ She looked at Dreama. ‘Is Algy coming back tonight?’

  ‘No,’ Dreama said miserably. ‘He wouldn’t even talk to me.’

  ‘Well, you did your best.’

  ‘You could have gotten Algy back,’ Dreama said even more miserably.

  ‘The hell I could have,’ Mare said. ‘I’m a complete failure.’ And Dreama scowled at her.

  ‘Now about New York,’ Jude said, trying for businesslike and ju
st sounding fussy. ‘I can guarantee you a vice presidency in public relations, but you’ll have to promise to give up anything out of the ordinary-’

  ‘No. Also, I sent William on a lunch break. He needed hot protein.’ Mare put her Coke down on the counter.

  ‘No food at the front of the store,’ Jude said automatically.

  ‘Don’t make me hurt you,’ Mare said. ‘I want to talk to you. In private.’

  Jude blinked and said, ‘I really don’t have the time right now, perhaps later,’ and made tracks for the back of the store, and when Mare followed him, he was gone.

  ‘Little weasel,’ Mare said when she came back to the front.

  ‘I don’t like him,’ Dreama said. ‘Hold that thought,’ Mare said.

  Jude stayed MIA, but William came back very late in a slightly better mood after Pauline fed him, the afternoon went by without incident, and then the six-thirty showing of Corpse Bride went off without a hitch except for Mare’s almost uncontrollable urge to weep when Emily turned into moths at the end. That’s me, she thought, I’ll end up a bunch of blue moths, unloved in this creepy little town. She was so bummed by the thought, that she almost missed the weirdness that started around eight o’clock, just as the sun was going down.

  First William didn’t come back from his dinner break, although the fact that he’d taken not only a lunch break but a dinner break, too, was noteworthy in itself Jude came back and called the Greasy Fork to track him down, incensed that Value Video!! was missing fifteen minutes of quality morose manager time, and they told him that not only was William not there, but Pauline had gone AWOL, too. ‘He didn’t kidnap her and take her hostage, did he?’ Dreama asked, and Mare said, ‘For what? Extra ketchup on his fries?’ Then Algy called and asked to talk to Dreama, and when she hung up, she was pink-cheeked.

  Mare said, ‘So?’

  ‘He’s coming to the nine-thirty show,’ Dreama said, blushing brighter.

  ‘That’s good,’ Mare said, starting to smile in spite of herself because Dreama looked so flustered. And why is that?’

  ‘He said he’d come if I’d sit with him,’ Dreama said. And I’m, like, off work then, so I can. He was really cute about it. Forceful, even.’