“Go into the kitchen and pour yourself some coffee,” she directed firmly.
“I’m sorry-” he stammered.
“Accepted,” she snapped. “Go get some coffee.”
“Yes, ma’am. Can I bring you some?”
She acknowledged that he was now on his good behavior with a small approving nod, while she said coolly, “I’ll get some later, thank you.”
Caleb, hearing their voices, appeared in the living room doorway. With a look he dispatched Davy.
In some private corner of her mind Emmie admired the unquestioned power with which he did it, but admiration was not uppermost in her mind. Right now, she had something to say, and she was going to say it.
Chapter 16
Do- Lord watched the slender woman descend the last few steps of the staircase. Her bare feet made no sound, and as the hugely oversized bathrobe dragged on the Oriental runner, it opened with each step to expose shapely ankles and narrow feet. The rich reds and blue jewel tones of the carpet set off the translucent porcelain whiteness of her skin.
He wasn’t a foot man.
He thought men who fixated on one or another part of women were strange.
He couldn’t believe how those white, almost delicate-looking feet, with toes and sole a shade of pink he’d only seen on the inside of a shell, turned him on. But the steely look in her wide light blue eyes convinced him this wasn’t the moment to tell her so.
“A pity fuck?” she enquired coolly, one slender hand resting on the newel post. “That’s what I was? Did you think you were doing your good deed for the day?
“Do SEALs get merit badges for sacrificing yourselves to make a girl’s day? Oh, no,” she answered her own question, “that would be juvenile- you get a ribbon, maybe a shiny medal.” She descended the last step. “Do you have a ceremony accompanied with backslapping and arm-punching for meritorious fucking above and beyond the call of duty? Or do you just earn enough snigger-rights to keep your arrogance fluffed to maximum?”
Wait a minute. She had a right to be angry-Davy’s remark would be insulting to any woman, even if it was true. He was willing to let her get it off her chest, but she had gone too far. “I’m not arrogant.”
Emmie stared at him, her mouth open, her wide cloud-colored eyes transfixed. Then she laughed. “If you think that, you’re not merely arrogant, you’re an arrogant idiot. And a jerk. Or would jerk be redundant? I’m afraid it would. Why don’t I ever have a thesaurus when I need one? Wait! I could still use jerk if I used a colon. ‘Arrogant idiot colon a jerk.’”
He knew what she was doing. Disappearing into her head. Wrapping herself with the cloak of academe. It accused him as nothing else could have. Having her castigate him like a fiery queen was bad enough, but watching her seem to fade away as if she was turning herself into a ghost was worse.
There was just enough truth in her accusations to heat his cheeks. Not that he had thought she was pitiable, but he had thought she probably didn’t get much-and yeah, some good sex would probably be good for her. So he didn’t need to feel guilty if he seduced her to get what he wanted. She wasn’t going to get hurt, and he’d make sure she got something out of the deal- that was more his thought. He’d assured himself she’d be willing, and she’d enjoy it.
But he had hurt her, never intending to. He was too much a SEAL to push the responsibility off on Davy’s thoughtless remark. It was his actions which Davy had interpreted by his own standards that occasioned it.
She hadn’t done anything to deserve careless treatment. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t withdraw. I liked you better spitting erudite sarcasm.” He grinned. “Actually, ‘meritorious fucking’ was pretty good.”
Emmie’s lips opened in amazement, and a flush of anger returned to her cheeks. “You have the nerve to tell me when you liked me better?”
That was more like it. God, she was pretty with her cheeks glowing and her eyes sparkling. He threw a little more gas on the flames with a cocky smile. “What can I say? Us arrogant jerks are like that.”
“Well, I liked you better when I didn’t know you at all.”
For the first time, one of her barbs landed in an unprotected spot. It was amazing how sharp it stung. “That’s not true.”
In wordless acknowledgement that she had been goaded into saying more than she meant. Emmie looked away. “So,” she said, her eyes not quite meeting his for the first time, “You didn’t get your fuck, did you? Now, that’s a pity. Will you cry all the way to the base? No, you’ll probably go beat somebody up. More manly, you know.”
Every operation goes to shit thirty seconds after it hits the ground. Staying flexible and remembering the objective was the key. And if you weren’t going to reach the objective, but you were going to get your tail shot off trying, the smart course of action was to pull back.
On the other hand, SEALs succeeded by going in where nobody in their right mind would. “Does this mean you’re not going to have sex with me?”
Emmie raised her eyes heavenward. “I do not believe your audacity! No!”
“Okay, does it mean you won’t go to Calhoun’s open house with me?”
For a moment Emmie couldn’t remember what he was talking about. In her opinion, Calhoun hadn’t meant the invitation, and she hadn’t meant her acceptance. It was just one of those conversational forms, beloved by Southerners, like “Y’all come back!” She had dismissed it. Apparently, Caleb hadn’t. She was tempted to say “no” just to spite him.
Then a better idea came to her. Her heart chugged into a different rhythm. If she was shocked by Caleb’s audacity, she was stunned by her own. The whole idea behind a pity fuck was that the girl was supposed to be abjectly grateful for being used.
She remembered the dress last night and the way members of Caleb’s team had grouped about her. She remembered the rush of feminine power. Her grandmother used to tell her that beauty was only skin deep. Yesterday, she found out her grandmother was mistaken. Beauty was nowhere near as deep as skin. It could be painted on with a brush.
She also remembered the suspicion that Lon and Davy were herding her and that Caleb had acted like he was staking a claim she had never agreed to. Had she not had yesterday’s experience, she would have been crushed this morning. Instead, she was mad, and she thought it would be nice to give this SEAL a little taste of his own medicine. It would be nice to have him importuning her. He could beg for her favors-and then she’d make it clear that she knew she could do better. No. Being deliberately cruel wasn’t in her. But she would enjoy telling him no.
She fingered the bathrobe’s bulky lapel. “I haven’t decided yet. Why don’t you give me a call next week?”
“Are you playing games now?”
“Why shouldn’t I? You’ve be�
�en playing some kind of game with me since you met me.”
“If I call, are you going to say yes?”
Emmie was tempted to give up the game. She was taking a risk by upping the stakes. He might not call. He might decide she wasn’t worth the trouble. If it hadn’t been for that arrogant look, that assurance in his lazy, smiling drawl that he already knew the answer, she would have. As it was, she gave him what she hoped was a mysterious smile. “You’ll have to call to find out, won’t you?”
Chapter 17
Back in the bedroom she’d stayed in so often everyone referred to it as “Emmie’s room,” Emmie stared at herself in the mirror. She hardly recognized the woman who stared back at her with eyes that glittered dangerously above magenta-splotched cheeks. She couldn’t remember ever being so furious. Ever. Fury that made her eyeballs sting and her scalp tighten and made her draw in air in great gulps.
She was angry, and when she looked back she could see she’d been angry a long, long time. She was angry at Davy and Caleb and all the jocks like them who believed she should be grateful they deigned to notice her. Angry at her conniving classmates who vied to be her lab partner because working with her guaranteed an A, but who couldn’t see her in the cafeteria. Angry at her grandmother for not letting her dress like the other girls, for telling her it was only necessary that her dress be clean and modest and pleasing to the Lord, and at all the people over the years who had treated her as if she didn’t matter.
She had convinced herself that she dressed to please herself and didn’t care what anyone else thought. Her indifference had been a carapace she’d grown to protect her vulnerable inside, to contain her anger, and also to hide it from herself.
And she was angry at herself. For pretending that not taking part in life was her choice. She, who had believed her problem was her honesty and her inability to see the point of pretending- she had been lying. She had told herself the beauty game was a competition, and being chosen was an illusion based on shallow values. She had told herself she was above the fray, when in truth, she’d been too cowardly to enter it.
As of this morning that would change. Anyone who saw her from now on would recognize she was a woman to be reckoned with. She didn’t lack a girlie gene. That was another lie. She had more than enough intelligence to bring about her transformation by herself. Eventually. She was on a deadline, unfortunately. She had only two weeks, and Pickett was on her honeymoon. Fortunately, she knew a person who had all the knowledge she lacked. Grace.
Emmie never doubted that Grace would help her. Nothing would please Grace more than to make a project of her. Her fear was that if she made herself Grace’s disciple, Grace would believe she had carte blanche to completely take over her life. It was a risk that had to be taken.
A couple of hours later Emmie found Grace in the living room organizing the wedding gifts. There was no time like the present. Emmie’s newfound nerve would only stretch so far. She ignored the way her heart was pounding.
“Grace, can I talk to you?” Her voice came out a wobbly whisper.
“Sure.” Grace answered absently while she carefully numbered the tag on a present, and beside the corresponding number on a ledger, wrote the name of the giver. Pickett would open the gifts in order, and a description of the gift would be entered in the ledger. “In a minute. Just let me get these-”
“Grace,” Emmie tried again. “Can I talk to you right now-in private?”
Grace looked up, puzzled. As well she might. Now that she could tell herself the truth, Emmie could admit how much Grace had always intimidated her. She felt “weighed in the balance and found wanting” by Grace, and had been more likely to duck Grace’s notice, than to demand it. “I need a makeover.”
Grace’s eyes lit with joy. Then dimmed with doubt. “But, Emmie, why?”
Emmie knew what she was asking. Why after all these years? Why after the discreet hints, carefully worded suggestions, and outright instructions, all of which Emmie had ignored? Emmie couldn’t possibly tell her the real reason, so she offered the one she had settled on-a reason Grace would accept and be flattered by.
“The bridesmaid dress you chose for me, the hair, the makeup, was all perfect. I didn’t know, if I did what you said, I could look like that.”
Grace clearly saw no need to dispute that, but still she gave Emmie a hard look over the little gold reading glasses she used these days. “You’re not very good at taking directions. If I agree to do this, will you actually do what I say? Or will you find excuses not to? Will you argue about every step?”
“No excuses,” Emmie agreed. “I will put myself in your hands and do as you say.”
Emmie regretted that promise less than two hours later when Grace pulled her Lexus into a parking space in front of a lingerie boutique. They’d driven all the way to Raleigh, the nearest large city, to find a place that came up to Grace’s standards.
“Um, Grace, do we have to do this? I promise I’ll buy anything you tell me to, but I’d rather do it in private.”
“Finding the right style for your figure type is all about covering up your flaws and highlighting your good points. Fortunately for you, you don’t have any real figure flaws. We’re mainly looking for clothes that fit.”
Emmie interrupted her. “I don’t understand. You didn’t mention my breasts.”
“What about them?”
“I thought covering up my flaws was what I was doing.”
“By buying clothes that were too big?”
“The clothes aren’t too big. My breasts are.”
Grace gave Emmie a long what planet are you from look. Emmie had been getting them all her life. She had enough experience to know anything else she said would make her look even stupider.
“Fit,” Grace went back to expounding on her theme as if Emmie’s question never happened, “except for rail-thin models, is a matter of having on the right undergarments. In other words, you need bras. With your shoulder, you’re not going to last through a lot of trial and error, while we look for the right ones. This shop has the best fitter I know.” Grace made her tone a little kinder. “I know you have modesty issues. But you know, you haven’t been tastefully covering your body, you’ve been obliterating it. The fact that you have a shape has got to be dealt with. Think of it as going to the doctor- but not as bad. No stirrups.”
It was an awful day, but when it was over Emmie was the owner of three bras that were amazingly comfortable. Even she could see that with them on, blouses didn’t gape, and suit jackets could be buttoned without bunching under the arms. Even though said blouses and jackets were one or two sizes smaller than what she was used to wearing.
“Intense colors overwhelm you,” Grace pronounced, “which is why you’ve instinctively shied away from them. But that doesn�
��t mean you have to limit yourself to beige. And no, you don’t have to wear girlish pastels. What we will look for are muted shades-rose and heather, plum rather than purple, denim blues.”
After an exhaustive and ruthless discussion of Emmie’s good points and flaws, she laid out her plan. “The most important thing is to emphasize your good points. You have perfect skin-even though you do absolutely nothing to maintain it, and you have good legs. We can’t do much shopping right now, because of your arm. But I’m determined to find a cardigan sweater or two, to wear with slacks and skirts. Something that discreetly shows off your bustline. After your arm heals we’ll get some pullover tops you can wear under them.”
“All right,” Grace said at last. “We have as many outfits as it’s reasonable to buy until your shoulder is better. The next thing is to decide how to have a few trial runs. I know on TV they do the big dramatic reveal, but that’s not really the best way. It’s better to try out a new look in a low pressure environment. You want to get comfortable with the unfamiliar clothes and people’s reactions so that when it’s crucial to look good you won’t transmit nervousness. I suggest Aunt Lilly Hale’s homecoming. I know she always invites you,” Grace added before Emmie could object.
“But it’s a family reunion.”
“So? You are family,” Grace pronounced with sublime disregard for the facts. “Emmie, don’t make me get ugly with you. It’s perfect. There won’t be anyone there you need to impress.”
“Let’s see if we can find some leftovers in Mom’s refrigerator-if we can face turkey again,” Grace said as she opened the front door to her mother’s house with her key. She had called her husband from the car to tell him to feed himself and their teenage sons. “Mom, we’re here.”
Sealed with a promise Page 17
