All About Charming Alice

by J. Arlene Culiner

  How peaceful she looked, how lovely, like a princess in a fairy tale. The princess condemned to sleep until the prince found her and woke her with a kiss.

  Carefully, he put the coffee cup down on the wooden night table, between two piles of books. A kiss? Plan B didn’t include kissing. However, like all good plans, Plan B didn’t have to be followed strictly to the letter. There had to be some leeway allowed.

  He bent down and kissed her gently. Beautiful lips, he thought. Irresistible.

  And like a fairy tale princess, her lids fluttered and she abandoned sleep. Her eyes opened and she found him standing there. He watched as the softest, most tender expression crossed her face.

  Was he the one still dreaming? He wasn’t. But a swell of joy filled his heart, astonishing him. Those first sleepy seconds had told him the truth about her feelings. She hadn’t had time to hide, be defensive.

  “Jace! I was dreaming about you.”

  He felt his knees weaken. “If the dreams you’re having about me are anything like the ones I have about you, Princess, it’s a miracle you manage to sleep at all.” Then felt like kicking himself! Plan B didn’t allow him to say things like that, even if they were true.

  “Princess? You called me Princess?” She stared at him, her eyes still full of tenderness, astonishment. And then, as if a horribly unpleasant thought suddenly seared across her mind, the softness vanished. “What are you doing here in my bedroom?” She shot to a sitting position. Or almost did. Instantly, she clutched at the sheet and crossed her arms in front of her.

  Which is when Jace realized the significance of the naked shoulders. He grinned wickedly. “Alice Treemont, you astound me.”

  She met his gaze with embarrassed defiance. “Now what have I done?”

  “You sleep naked,” he said simply. “That’s a very exciting idea.” Impossible to keep the huskiness out of his voice. Damn it. Plan B was being shot to hell. Because if there was one thing he longed to do more than anything else was to take those lips of hers again, to pry that sheet out of her hands, to fold it back and reveal her nakedness. He wanted to see her, to see her breasts, kiss their tips, trace a line to her belly with his mouth, go lower, deeper, kiss every inch of her.

  He pulled himself back sharply. Just the thought of what he’d like to be doing with Alice caused an almost uncontrollable jolt of desire to shoot though him. His fingers twitched, wanting to touch, to caress. But he couldn’t do that.

  Instead, he reached for the coffee cup, offered it to her.

  “Hot and freshly made. Milk and no sugar, the way you like it.” With great effort he managed to control his face, keep it devoid of expression.

  Which was more than could be said for Alice. She had blushed a fiery pink, didn’t dare look at him. As if one of her deep dark secrets had been found out. “What’s wrong with sleeping in the nude? And why do I have to justify myself? This is too much! First you invade my house, now you invade my bedroom.”

  “I’m waiting for you to take this cup.” The rich smell of fresh coffee wafted through the air.

  She opened her mouth, closed it again, as if seeing the uselessness of argument. Still holding the sheet tightly against her breasts with one hand, she leaned back against the pillows, reached out for the cup with the other. Her mouth curved upward. “It’s awfully nice of you to bring me coffee in bed. Milk and no sugar: how did you notice such a banal detail?”

  “How people like their coffee is no banal detail.”

  “Okay.” The smile became a grin. “And, by the way, what are you doing up so early?”

  “Early? It’s ten o’clock.”

  “Ten!” Her eyes opened wide. “Impossible. I never sleep until ten. I have to get up and make your breakfast! You’re always out of the house by this time.” She reached to put her cup on the table, but he stopped her movement.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m taking the day off. And I’m in charge of breakfast this morning. It’ll be waiting for you in the kitchen.”

  “Jace. No.”

  “If you go argue with the wind, it’ll be just as useful!” he said, heading for the door. “Drink your coffee and luxuriate. Be happy you have a slave for once.”

  He was feeling inordinately pleased. By the look of it, he’d just won a battle. Not the war, of course, not yet. Still, Plan B seemed to be the best thing to hit civilization since black licorice.

  • • •

  An hour and a half later, the sound of loud banging had Alice shooting out of her office and through the front door. What was going on? It sounded as if a whole wrecking crew was slugging away at the very walls of her house. Any second now, the whole entire building would collapse into a vast heap of dust and shattered sticks of furniture.

  She found Jace sitting on the ground beside the veranda, nails sticking out of his mouth, a hammer in his hand and a stack of thick old wooden beams beside him. Now what was this absolutely infuriating person up to? He wasn’t going to make her life miserable all day long, was he? Yes, it looked like he was.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  He turned his head, gazed at her, nonchalantly. Took the nails out of his mouth and whistled lasciviously. “Jeans. I didn’t even know you owned a pair of jeans. I like your hair like that, too.”

  She blushed. She’d pinned her hair back in a low, loose chignon but would rather have been eaten by ants than admit she’d taken special care with her appearance this morning. Why? Because she really did want to please him. “Jace, I want an answer. What are you doing?”

  “Didn’t anyone ever tell you a house needs upkeep? If you want this place to be standing in another one hundred and fifty years, there are things that have to be done. Urgently. This joist here, for example. It needs to be reinforced so I’m doing just that.”

  “You’ve no right!” She leaned forward aggressively, hands balled into fists.

  He shook his head, eyes twinkling. “A man likes to catch up on home repairs on his day off.”

  “This is my house, not yours!”

  “Quite right. You own the house. But just now, this happens to be my home.” He put a nail into place and banged away at it.

  All Alice could do was stand there, wait patiently for the noise to stop so she could continue the argument. God, he was infuriating. “It isn’t your home! Your home is in Chicago.”

  “My apartment is in Chicago. That’s true enough. A nice, big, flashy apartment with expensive, modern furniture. I’ve also just worked out that it’s perfectly impersonal and soulless. Just an apartment, get it? Not a home. This place is a home. A real home. And I feel like helping you protect it.” He began attacking another nail. Stopped. Looked at her. “And when I’m finished with this job, the veranda isn’t going to cave in like it was threatening to do. And, by the way, I’m not stopping with the veranda. There’s all the rest.” The wide gesture he made encompassed the whole house, the yard, the road.

  “The entire state of Nevada, in fact,” Alice muttered sourly, and continued glaring at him ferociously hoping he’d eventually take the hint or feel intimidated. But since he didn’t even bother looking up again, her effort was wasted. Besides, not only was he right, he was also doing her a big favor. He might be gone in a few weeks’ time but the veranda wouldn’t be.

  She turned to go back into the house.

  “Alice?”

  She stopped. “Now what?” She forced herself to look forbidding.

  “When I’m finished here, we’ll take the dogs for a walk. Together. I’d like you to show me more of the desert.”

  “No way.” What would he come up with next? What was he trying to do? Run a revolution? “I go on my walks alone.”

  “Not today you aren’t. I even bought a pair of walking boots just like yours, and today’s the day I’ll be testing them.” His eyes twinkled mischievously. “Besides, it’s Saturday, and I promised Killer we’d go walking on Saturday. Can’t disappoint Killer like that, Princess. Could mess up his psyche.”


  “Why are you calling me Princess?” she asked suspiciously.

  His grin broadened. “Private joke.”

  “Between you and who else? Killer?” Exasperated, Alice stomped back into the house, but not before she heard him begin whistling a vaguely familiar tune. What was that melody? She paused, listened, searched her mind. The words rushed into her head: You’ll never walk alone.

  No. He really was pushing things too far. Making fun of her too. Not that there was anything she could do about it. More useful for her to concentrate, get on with her work — as if she could with all that ruckus going on.

  • • •

  “Which way are we walking?” Jace asked, when lunch dishes had been washed and put away. They’d eaten together, of course. So that problem had been resolved. Now he found himself holding his breath, waiting for her protests about the walk to begin again.

  “Hangman’s Hill,” she answered calmly, as if there’d never been the slightest opposition to his accompanying her.

  “Sounds cheery.”

  They went out onto the veranda where Alice whistled for the dogs and attached them on leashes.

  “Are you afraid they’ll run off, become strays again?”

  “That’s the least of my worries!” Her mouth twisted into a wry grimace. “Most dogs know when they’ve got a good thing going for them. I usually manage to find good homes for some and just keep the ones that no one will adopt.”

  “So why the leashes?”

  She shrugged. “I keep them on leashes most of the time so they won’t run wild and hunt. I let them off when I’m sure the coast is clear.”

  Of course, thought Jace. He should have thought of that. Trust Alice to be softhearted about any living creature — with the exception of Jace Constant.

  “Then I suppose you’ll be interested to learn that there’s a good chance the Winterback Mine area will be turned into a conservation area and wildlife refuge.”

  Alice nodded, but with less enthusiasm than he’d expected. “So I’ve heard. But so far, that’s little more than rumor. The politicians have to agree to the project, and funding needs to be found. Those are two huge hurdles.”

  He fell into step beside her as they set off on a dirt road behind the house, one that led over a dusty rise. Once again he admired the way she moved — her long, healthy, slightly awkward stride. It was good to be walking beside her like this. Their steps had the same range, the same swing, as if they were meant to cross the world together. It felt just right.

  He also liked the way the wind fluttered the loose strands of hair that had escaped from her chignon. Still, the expression on her face hadn’t softened. Not really. She looked as proud, as defiant as ever. Not the way she’d looked at him when he’d stood by her bed this morning. He almost smiled. That had been her secret face, the one he wanted to see again. And he would; he was determined he would.

  “Do you have an ulterior motive in taking me to a place called Hangman’s Hill?”

  She laughed. “Is your conscience bothering you?”

  “Why? Forcing my company on you doesn’t seem like a very serious crime.”

  “Actually no one even knows why the place is called Hangman’s Hill. There are no gruesome old stories about the place. Except one.”

  “I figured there did have to be one.” He shook his head in mock resignation.

  Her golden eyes sparkled as they met his, and his heart swelled. Special. The word floated lazily through his head.

  “It’s not very gruesome, actually,” she continued. “As you probably know, winters here can be terribly harsh. One year, when spring thaw came, someone from the village found a frozen cow out there. At first, everyone thought it had died of starvation. Until they discovered a cowboy, alive and fairly warm, inside the dead animal. He’d been out of work like most cowboys were in the winter, and had nowhere to live. When the weather became very cold, he’d killed the cow and crawled into its corpse to survive.”

  “Lesson number one in desert survival,” said Jace. “I’ll keep it in mind until summer comes around.” Now what had he just said? Summer? That was months and months away. What was he talking about? He wasn’t going to be anywhere around here then. Had Alice noticed the slip up? He didn’t think so.

  “I often think of the women settlers who came out to the prairies or to places like this, a hundred, a hundred and fifty years ago,” she was saying. “Most came from poor farms in Europe, or big cities in the east. They accepted arranged marriages with ranchers because they thought that out here, they’d have a decent life. They’d arrive at train stations in the middle of nowhere, and their new husbands would pick them up, take them, usually by mule, to the shack or dugout where they’d spend the rest of their days. No neighbors. No entertainment. Nothing but childbearing and drudgery. A few tried running away, but finding them was easy. Some were chained to the doorways of their huts so they couldn’t escape again.”

  “Where did you learn so much local history?” Jace asked.

  “I read,” she answered defiantly. “Books exist even in Blake’s Folly, in case you didn’t notice!”

  “Oh, I noticed, all right,” he said, amused. “There are heaps of books all over your bedroom. You probably spend a lot of time reading in bed.”

  “And?”

  “So do I,” he said softly. The thought conjured up nights with Alice in that big bed of hers. Reading. And doing other things …

  They had reached the top of a high hill now and Jace looked around. Straggling Blake’s Folly was far out of sight, and as far as the eye could see, everything was beige: the wide valley in front of them, the range of bare hills in the distance. “Strange place,” he murmured. “Like the surface of the moon.”

  “In a way. But I really do love it here. It’s beautiful.”

  He liked the passion she put into the declaration. A passionate woman. Believing passionately in causes. Feeling passionate about a landscape. Reacting with passion when he touched her. Very nice, very rare. As rare as pure gold. And he’d found it here. His feeling of satisfaction curled up nicely with his raw desire.

  “Any rattlesnakes out this way?”

  “Worried?” she asked.

  “Cautious. I’m counting on you to pull me through this.”

  “I’ll do my best.” She looked at him. “But why worry about rattlesnakes now? Just because you’re in the desert? There are rattlers everywhere. In the eastern states, in California. They’re wonderful swimmers too: they just push against the water. People have spotted them several miles off shore. And some climb trees.”

  The subject wasn’t a pleasant one to him, but for some reason he was feeling less queasy than he usually did. Alice was watching him closely, and he forced himself to smile. More than anything, he didn’t want to look like a coward in her eyes.

  “Are you all right talking about this?” she asked.

  “Fine. Perhaps the more familiar I become with the subject, the less traumatic it will be. Still, I’d like to make a deal: I charm you; you charm the snakes.”

  She laughed, and held out her hand to seal the bargain. He curled it into his, and felt like a king. Savoring the moment, he breathed in deeply and the air was dry, strangely pungent in a harsh, unusual way. “I’m actually starting to appreciate this part of the world,” he said, surprising himself.

  She looked pleased. “It does grow on you after a while. When I first came out here, I thought I’d made the crazy decision to live on the moon. I’d spend days walking up around these hills, searching for something that was different, something alive, something green — a forest, a garden, a lawn — anything at all. But all I could find was one beige valley with a rim of hills leading on to another beige valley.”

  “But you stuck it out. Came to love the place.”

  “I did.”

  He waited, hoped she would confide in him, tell him more. But she didn’t. Unless he pried, and by now, he knew how she hated that. Still, he couldn’t stop himself
. “But you must have wanted to get away from something pretty badly.”

  Her eyes avoided his, but she nodded slowly. “Oh, yes. I was definitely running away.”

  “From?”

  “From everything. From a life I hated.”

  “From a man?”

  Her eyes met his, finally. Her lip curled. “Oh yes. Also from a man. My husband, as it happens. The world’s greatest playboy.”

  “I see,” said Jace.

  “I suppose you do.” Her eyes challenged him. “Don’t you go in for the same billing?”

  Jace shook his head. “Oh no, Alice. That’s unfair. I thought I already made it clear I’d never be a playboy husband. Never. And as for calling me a playboy, well, that’s your label, not mine.”

  Although, when he remembered the conversation they’d had on the veranda last night, the designation didn’t sound that far off the mark.

  • • •

  The easiest way back to the house led through the middle of Blake’s Folly. By now, the sun had disappeared and deepening shadows pooled around the odd-looking collection of ramshackle dwellings, the caravans and shacks, lending them a mysterious, but homey air.

  Jace seemed to be particularly interested in a huge pile of boards stacked up in a yard that would never, under any circumstances, be called a garden. True, there were a few long-dead and stringy flowers in tubs, several gasping, scraggly trees, but most of the space was taken up by pans, boilers, tires, car parts and unknown metal carcasses that just might — a very long time ago — have belonged to something recognizable.

  “If I didn’t know I was in Blake’s Folly, I’d say we were looking at contemporary art in a sculpture park,” said Jace, amusement in his tone.

  Alice stole a glance at him from under her eyelashes, at the strong jaw, the fine lines crinkling around the shining green eyes, the hair that curled temptingly over his brow. Useless to try damping down her feelings for him: it was too late. Jace had managed to penetrate every secret place in her heart and there was no going back. All she could do was keep hiding the way she really felt. She even managed to sound calm, slightly mocking.