Summer Jazz

by Webb, Peggy

  Uncle Mickey laughed. "That ought to stop her. By the way, Janet and I are getting married."

  "That's great! Congratulations."

  "We're thinking of honeymooning in the giant boy tox. I introduced her to it last night. It's become her favorite place."

  Hunter hooted with laughter. "I'd have the thing air-expressed to Paris if I thought it would work with Mattie."

  "She's still being stubborn, huh?"

  "And hurt. But she's so independent, she won't let me help her. She won't even let me near her."

  "Do you have a plan?"

  "I always have a plan."

  After he'd hung up, Hunter gazed at the latest report from Claude Leveque. Mattie would be attending a house party this weekend at Jean-Louis Rameau's country estate, just outside Paris. Plans included a costume party, a scavenger hunt, and horse racing.

  A couple of quick phone calls got him an invitation to the Rameau estate. The dangerous glint in his eyes signaled he was plotting devilment.

  o0o

  Mattie's bare feet sank into the plush carpet as she unpacked her clothes in one of Jean-Louis's guest rooms. She smiled when she hung up her costume. The shock of it should keep Paris talking for months. Hunter would read about it in the papers. Maybe it would send him flying back to Dallas.

  Her smile faded. Was that what she really wanted? To send the man she loved out of her life forever? Not really. But at the moment it seemed the best solution.

  She closed the closet door and went downstairs to lunch.

  o0o

  Everybody agreed that Jean-Louis had outdone himself. The costume party was one of the most elaborate he'd ever had. “But where was Mattie Houston?” they asked. There were belly dancers and Indians and pirates and alligators and devils, and there was even a zebra. But where was Mattie?

  Hunter was wondering the same thing. He stood in the crowded ballroom beside a marble column, trying to keep his sword from spearing the backside of a ridiculous fat man in an alligator suit. He was terribly hot in his pirate's garb, and wished he'd chosen to be primitive rather than swashbuckling. A loincloth would have felt good in this heat. He reached up and loosened the tie on his green cape.

  Suddenly a murmur ran through the crowd and everybody turned toward the French doors.

  "It's a horse!" someone shouted.

  "It's Lady Godiva!"

  "It's Mattie Houston!"

  Mattie rode the white horse sidesaddle. His hooves clattered on the marble floor as she pranced him right through the middle of the crowd. The room was so still, a falling snowflake would have made a loud crash, for Mattie was wearing nothing except a flesh-colored body suit, a long blond wig, and a smile.

  The alligator poked his snout into Hunter's face.

  "That woman's got guts," he said. "Nobody's pulled a stunt like that since Eleanor of Aquitaine rode naked to the Crusades."

  "She's remarkable, all right."

  "She has quite a reputation, you know." The man's fat lips drooled into his alligator teeth. "I think I’ll go over there and try my luck with her."

  Hunter stepped forward and planted his boot on the alligator's tail. When the man moved, he lost the whole backside of his costume.

  "What the devil . . . ?"

  "I think you just lost your tail," Hunter said. "Better go upstairs and make repairs."

  He chuckled as the man waddled off, his round behind heaving to and fro in his exposed red boxer shorts.

  The Indian next to Hunter laughed. "I saw what you did. The pompous old geezer deserved every bit of it. He's a fortune hunter."

  "I never did trust a man who wears boxer shorts,"

  He left the Indian to fight his way through the crowd that surrounded Mattie.

  The instant the broad-shouldered pirate stepped into her circle of admirers, Mattie knew it was Hunter. Even if his untamed hair hadn't given him away, the fierce black eyes would have. They fairly sizzled behind his mask.

  She tried to still the jackhammer rhythm of her heart as she unconsciously smoothed the long wig over her breasts.

  Hunter caught the horse's bridle. "If it isn't the shocking Miss Mattie Houston," he drawled.

  His voice made shivers crawl up her legs. The horse sensed her excitement and danced nervously in place.

  "Do I shock you, Hunter?" she asked.

  "On the contrary. You delight me."

  The group of admirers sensed that something private was going on between Lady Godiva and the big pirate. They gathered their feathered fans and broadswords and side arms and faded into the background.

  "I thought you wanted a sweet, innocent woman," Mattie said.

  "Sweet and innocent, sinful and wicked. I don't give a damn, Mattie." He moved closer, so that he could caress her leg. "I want whatever you are. You can take that ridiculous wig off and parade stark naked through the streets of Paris, for all I care. I'd be waiting to apply the sunburn lotion when you got off the horse."

  In spite of his words, Mattie clung stubbornly to the notion that she could drive him away if only she were wicked enough.

  "You haven't seen anything yet," she said. "Jean-Louis's parties get really raunchy. I’ll probably throw this wig in the fountain and swing from the chandelier before the night's over."

  "I’ll be in a front-row seat applauding. I love a feisty woman."

  She was not deterred. "Have you ever seen anybody dance wearing a Lady Godiva wig? It's a trick keeping all that hair in the right places."

  "Don't you have to get off the horse first?" He reached up and circled her waist under all the false hair. "Let me help you down, Mattie."

  "Don't you dare."

  She kicked her heels into the horse's flank, and the horse lunged forward. She felt Hunter's grip loosen, felt the bump of his chest against her horse as she plunged into the crowd.

  "Look out!" she yelled as she bore down on the zebra. The front of the zebra went north and the back went south as she surged between them. The horse was nervous in the crowd, and she hadn't ridden in three years. She crushed Tarzan's stuffed ape, squashed an Indian's peace pipe, and nearly crashed into the champagne fountain before she could get the horse to stop.

  "Nice going, Mattie," Jean-Louis said, appearing at her side. "I can always count on you to keep a party good and lively."

  "Thanks." She gathered the reins tightly and glanced back over her shoulder to see how Hunter was taking her departure. He wasn't there. She looked around the room, trying to spot the black-haired pirate. He was nowhere to be seen. Puzzled, she turned her attention back to her host.

  Mattie would have needed X-ray vision to see Hunter. He was upstairs making a drastic costume change. He stood in his room, gloriously naked, wielding a huge pair of scissors he'd found in the Louis XIV desk.

  "She wants me to be shocked, does she?" he muttered. "I’ll show her shocking.'"

  He held up the remains of his green pirate's cape.

  "Not bad."

  He measured it for size.

  "Just about right."

  He tied his costume in place and inspected it in the pier mirror, then laughed at the ridiculous figure he cut.

  "A little too much ventilation."

  As he pondered the problem, he remembered seeing a tipsy sixteenth-century French courtier in the hallway. He stepped outside and caught the man just as he was entering a bedroom down the hall.

  "I need to borrow your tights," Hunter said.

  The man lurched against the wall and inspected Hunter. "You cher-tain-ly do." He tugged on Hunter's arm. "Here, man." He stripped off the tights and handed them to Hunter. "I won't be needing theshe much longer anyhow."

  Hunter returned to his bedroom, pulled on the pale tights, and went downstairs grinning.

  His entrance was not as dramatic as Mattie's, but it certainly didn't go unnoticed. A white-haired woman in a pink Barbara Cartland costume dropped her champagne glass.

  "Great Caesar's ghost!" she said. "Where'd you get that big . . fig leaf?"
>
  "Texas. Everything grows big in Texas."

  The people who had been alerted by the shattering of the champagne glass heard the exchange and roared with laughter. That sound caught Mattie's attention. She carefully made her way toward the source.

  She nearly fell off her horse when she saw Hunter. Two very nicely shaped, very big fig leaves were tied, front and back, over his groin and butt. Except for the tights, which left little to the imagination, the rest of him was as gorgeously naked as if he'd stepped from the shower. Her chuckle started as a smile and grew into a gale of laughter that made her double over the horse's mane.

  Hunter was immediately beside her.

  "Are you ready to dance now, Mattie?"

  She sat up and wiped tears of laughter off her cheeks. "Dance? Are you crazy?"

  "You wanted to be shocking." He pulled her off the horse. "I'm helping you out."

  Her heavy wig tipped dangerously and the amber light glittered in his eyes.

  Mattie studied his face as she hastily readjusted her false hair. He looked as stubborn as she felt. Furthermore, he was gripping her waist in a way that said he had no intention of letting go.

  She rebounded in typical Mattie fashion.

  Wrapping her arms around his neck, she whispered into his ear, "Do you want to see what I can do to a fig leaf?"

  "If it's more than Eve did in the garden, I'm in trouble."

  Pressed close to him, her false hair and his fig leaf were no protection at all.

  "One more move like that," he said, "and the front of this costume will be airborne."

  He pulled her tightly against him and led her smoothly into a dance to the slow, sultry music.

  "Jazz," he murmured against her hair. "It always reminds me of you."

  Being in his arms made her forgetful. Nothing could ever go wrong in Hunter's arms, she thought. She wished the music would never stop. She wished the night would never end.

  She was stunningly aware of their scanty attire. As they danced, desire spiraled through her so fiercely, her knees would have buckled if Hunter hadn't been holding her so tightly. She had to trust her natural sense of rhythm to get her through the dance, for her mind had ceased to function.

  "What's the name of this song, Mattie?"

  "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man. Gershwin. A tune from Showboat."

  "Does it last two or three hours?"

  "No. Why?"

  "It's going to be that long before I can get this fig leaf to behave."

  "Just keep dancing, Hunter."

  He chuckled softly. "I love it when you're breathless, Mattie."

  "I am not."

  "Yes, you are. It reminds me of the night we decided to go for a moonlight swim. Remember that game of water tag we started?"

  She remembered. It had been near the beginning of the summer, when their awareness of each other had been so keen that every glance, every movement, every word, had been magnified.

  Remembering, she closed her eyes and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  "Keep dancing, Hunter," she whispered. "Don't let the music stop."

  "I won't."

  They danced through two sets and one intermission, never letting go. They might have solved their problems simply by holding each other if it hadn't been for the horse.

  Suddenly Mattie came out of her dreamlike trance. "Good grief. My horse just took a bite of Helen Montague's grass skirt."

  "I noticed some time back that she needed tying."

  "Helen or the horse?"

  "Both. The horse was nibbling Julius Caesar's wig and Helen was nibbling his . . . canapes."

  Mattie was grateful for Hunter's easy wit. It helped dispel some of the mesmerizing power of his presence. She pulled out of his arms.

  "I think the music has ended, Hunter."

  She glanced around the room for the horse, for Jean-Louis, for anything that would take her attention away from Hunter.

  "You told me not to let it stop," he said.

  His hand cupped her chin, forcing her to look up. She caught her breath. Being in the path of those eyes was like being in a steam bath. And the sooner she got out, the sooner she'd be saved from a heat stroke.

  "Did I say that, Hunter? It was temporary madness. Jean-Louis's parties always affect me that way."

  "Don't do that, Mattie."

  "What?"

  "Pretend. I'm the man you love, and you keep pretending that I don't exist." He caught her hands and rubbed them across his bare chest. "Feel that, Mattie. I'm real. I exist. All the pretense in the world won't make me vanish."

  "I don't want you to vanish. I just want you to go back to Dallas and leave me alone."

  "Is that really what you want?"

  Her hands trembled on his chest. The beat of his heart sounded like the march of time. Each stroke ticked off another irretrievable moment. Each pulse marked an empty interval without the man she loved.

  She hesitated. Was she making a mistake? Was pushing him away the answer to her problems? She wished she had the gift of foresight. She wished she had his confidence that time would heal her wounds. But at the moment all she had were a set of jumbled emotions and not enough feelings to go around. In order to survive, she had to be stingy. She had to protect her spirit. She couldn't afford to expend emotions on Hunter or anybody else. Getting through one day at a time was her main objective at the moment.

  "Go," she said. The word was barely a whisper, and she hoped it would be effective.

  He lifted her hands to his lips.

  "I'll go," he said. "For now."

  As she watched him walk away she thought that he was the only man alive who could make a fig leaf look dignified. With that magnificent, burnished body he could have walked across the ballroom stark naked and made everybody else feel overdressed.

  Hunter had class—and she was letting him go. A sudden panic seized her, and she opened her mouth to call him back. But something stopped her. Call it pride, call it cowardice, call it fear. Whatever it was, it stilled her cry. The moment was lost. Hunter disappeared from the ballroom, and Mattie went in search of her horse.

  o0o

  The way Hunter sat on a horse should be declared illegal, Mattie decided. She tried to pay attention to Jean-Louis. She tried to care about what he was saying. But she couldn't keep her eyes off Hunter. In their skintight jeans, his muscular legs hugged the black stallion's sides. His chest, bared by the unbuttoned white shirt, gleamed in the sunlight and looked as powerful as the horse he rode.

  Three other riders were lined up beside him, waiting for the race to begin, but in Mattie's eyes there was only Hunter. She was sitting in the end seat of the fifth row, and she nearly fell off trying to get a better view.

  Jean-Louis stood up and walked to the microphone. "Gentlemen, select your colors."

  Mattie watched as the three other riders rode up to the bleachers. Three eager women came forward and tied their scarves around the riders' upper arms. Hunter remained at the starting line.

  Jean-Louis spoke into the microphone once more. "Select your colors."

  A smile of pure devilment lit Hunter's face as he nudged his horse forward. With the nonchalance of a postman picking up the mail, he rode up to the bleachers and scooped Mattie into his arms. Pressed tightly to his body, she felt as if she'd tumbled into an inferno.

  Jean-Louis was not pleased. "I said, select your colors."

  Hunter settled her into the saddle in front of him and stroked her hair. "These are my colors."

  She felt branded. His hand on her hair, his chest against her back, his legs brushing hers—all were forever imprinted on her. Her breathing became rapid. She wondered why Paris in the summertime had never been this scorching before.

  "You can't race with her in the saddle," Jean-Louis said. "The extra weight will handicap you. You'll never win."

  "I’ll take my chances," Hunter said as he walked the horse back to the starting line.

  "This is insanity," Mattie said.

 
"This is brilliant," Hunter told her.

  Jean-Louis's face was tight as he glanced once more at his determined guest. "You know the rules," he said into the microphone. "Cross country. The course is well marked. No shortcuts. No using the crop. May the best man win."

  "You’ll never win like this, you know," Mattie told Hunter.

  He tightened his arms around her. "I've already won."

  The starting gun sounded, and Mattie felt the black stallion lunge forward. The wind whipped her hair back from her face as they galloped past the other three riders. The big stallion was powerful, and he soon outdistanced the other horses.

  As they raced across the open fields and into the woods, Mattie realized that Hunter wasn't pacing the horse. He was giving him his head. Suddenly they veered off the marked course. Low-hanging branches impeded their progress, and Hunter reined the stallion down to a trot.

  "This is not the course," Mattie said.

  He chuckled. "It's the course I've planned."

  "You don't even know where you are. We’ll get lost."

  "I paid Jean-Louis's stable boy a handsome sum to give me a private tour of the estate. We’ll be lost only as long as I want us to be."

  "You should have been a pirate, Hunter. Kidnapping is your style."

  He laughed. "I thought you came willingly."

  "I did not."

  "You slid into this saddle as if you'd been waiting for the chance."

  She ignored the remark and concentrated on the scenery. It was easy to do. The woods on Jean-Louis's estate were lush and well cared for. Clean-cut riding trails wound through the forest. Here and there sunlight filtered through the thick trees, illuminating patches of yellow and purple wild flowers.

  Hunter reined to a stop beside a small stream. He slid from the saddle and smiled up at Mattie.

  "Are you coming, princess?"

  "Why are we stopping?"

  "Can't you guess?"

  "I don't even want to try. I want to go back to the house."

  "Not yet." He reached up and plucked her from the saddle. "First this."

  With the swiftness of a nighthawk, his lips crushed down on hers. Her mouth parted to receive his tongue. She was willing. She was eager. She was flame. Nothing was heard in the silent woods except her soft moan of surrender.