Pat whistled. “Well, that would be a treat. I hope the boy’s not getting his hopes too high. He tends to set very big goals.”
“But he’s diligent. He’ll get his way,” she said. She wondered if he had gotten his way, last night.
“Oh, he’s determined. But you’ve never met Elizabeth. Probably best if you never do,” he said with a grin.
They got back to work, he huddled over his book, she clutching her coffee.
Simon watched them from the door, but didn’t go near. He wouldn’t bother them again while they were working. She had high hopes for his father, and he wanted her to keep the old man at it. He wanted to see her, though, make sure she wasn’t angry with him, find out how much she remembered, see if she had a hangover. And to tell her about the note, though he hadn’t figured out how to do that. He’d called John this morning, and told him to come in as soon as possible.
Reluctantly he left and went back to the office, waving a hello at Sally and Peter, another clerk.
Logan was in the office. “You called O’Malley?” he asked.
“Yup.”
“Good. Now down to business.” Logan’s face brightened with its usual lascivious grin. “How did it go last night after you carried in our little drunkard?”
Simon scowled. “That’s my little drunkard.”
“Come on, man, I brought in the bags for you, I’ve earned some information. Did you get her naked? Did she wake up all warm and willing?”
Simon sighed, dropped into his chair. “She didn’t wake up. And I did get her naked, but only to put her in pajamas. She was sort of half conscious, so she did what I told her to. Lift your arms, pull this over your head.”
“Spread your legs?” Logan offered helpfully.
“God, you’re a pig!” Simon yelled. “I tried not to even look at her. I don’t want her to think—”
“Come off it! You must have seen something. How’s her body?”
“Amazing,” Simon admitted. “Perfect. But it’s not mine to touch until she offers it to me, and that’s the way it’s got to be.” He ripped open a drawer and took out a pen.
“And until then you’ll be mad as a bear, am I right?”
“Shut the fuck up,” Simon said. He was remembering her lips on his the night before, her soft words, “Simon, I love you.” And last night he’d wrestled her into her nightgown, seen that beautiful glimpse of rose-colored nipples on surprisingly large creamy breasts. At the time he really had paid little attention; Veronica had been dead weight and hard to handle. Now, though, in retrospect, he was remembering her body and appreciating it for all its lovely features. “Oh, God,” he moaned, dropping his head into a pile of correspondence.
“You’ve got it bad, man,” Logan said sympathetically, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe we can have a double wedding.”
“You didn’t—”
”What, propose? No. But I did have sex. Sorry to rub it in, horny boy. Sally is quite the little acrobat, and madly in love with me. She insisted. How could I say no?”
Simon looked at him with loathing and envy. “Pig. I’ll warn her about you.”
“I’m not such a pig,” said Logan thoughtfully. “I went into town yesterday shopping for anything with a butterfly on it. Looked at ten stores. Some of the stuff was just tacky and stupid, but then I found one made of crystal. Tiny, like this—” he held up two fingers to show two inches of size— “and it makes rainbows of light shoot all over the room when the sun shines.” His voice sounded rather too dreamy for Simon’s taste. “Anyway, too late to warn her. She loves me and I’m not giving her back. Now get your girl into bed and we’ll all live happily ever after.”
“Simon?”
He wrenched his head up to see her at the door, looking lovely and shapely in a blue turtleneck. “I wondered if I could talk to you for a moment.”
Logan leaped up. “I need to make my rounds, anyway, and to encourage Sally in her morning tease. She does this thing with her tongue that is very naughty—”
“Goodbye!” Simon yelled.
Logan left, elaborately and comically stalking away. Veronica laughed in spite of herself.
Simon got up, pulled her to him, and kissed her, his lips lingering on hers. “Good morning,” he said. “I saw you at work, but I didn’t want to bother you.”
Behind her he saw John O’Malley. “John, come in,” he said. “This is Veronica James; Veronica, this is John O’Malley, my cop friend.”
She stepped out of Simon’s embrace, for once not blushing, said “Hello,” and shook John’s hand. “I thought you were here yesterday,” she said.
“I was.” O’ Malley looked uncertainly at Simon.
“Veronica, I didn’t have a chance to tell you yet. Late last night, your, uh—mystery man called again. Peter took the message. He said just one thing and then hung up.”
Veronica’s eyes widened, and she watched as Simon opened a drawer and took out the note, handed it to her.
She read it. “Oh, my God.”
John O’Malley gently took it from her hand. “Now we’ve stepped into something more serious. Miss James, do you have any idea who might be stalking you?”
“Stalking?” Veronica’s voice was pitched higher than usual. “My God, you think this is stalking? There’s no one, I mean absolutely no one.”
“Who knew you were coming to Vermont?” asked Simon, pushing her gently into his chair.
“No one. Seriously. Simon, you know what I told you about my family—we’re estranged,” she told John. “And there was no one else to tell. I mean, I left a forwarding address for my landlord, for the mail and stuff, and I left it in the office of the school where I taught. That’s it.”
“Male teachers at that school?” John asked, getting out a notebook.
“Well, yes, but—”
“How many?”
“Uh—two. But these are professional men, career men, one of them has a family, you can’t—”
“And I’ll need the name of your landlord.”
Veronica stared at him in disbelief. “I’ll write it down,” she said. “Simon, do you have a piece of—”
Simon handed her a notebook and a pen. She sat down at the desk chair he pulled out for her. Her hand shook as she began to write. He felt anger, impotent anger, at the coward who wanted to frighten her this way.
John O’Malley squatted in front of her. “I also need the names of former lovers.”
“There are none.” Her voice was blank.
“Miss James, with all due respect, you’re a beautiful woman—”
“There was just one; Simon knows. He dumped me for my sister; they’re happily married. It’s not him,” she said.
“And no one else—”
”No.” She blushed delicately.
“Okay. Miss James, I don’t mean to bother you; it’s just that we did check into that call that was made yesterday, and it was made from a public phone here in Clearview. Which means that whoever this guy is either lives here, or came here with the express purpose of watching you. Whoever he is, he watched you with Simon here last night.”
Simon stiffened. The bastard. Of course. He’d seen her kiss him in the parking lot, maybe even in the car. He’d been watching them . . . he felt sick. He could only imagine how Veronica felt.
John stood up, still holding the note. “I can keep this, right? Miss James, if you’ll hand me that information?”
Veronica tore out the sheet and gave it to him wordlessly.
“Now if you remember anything else, of course you’re going to call me, right?” he asked.
Veronica nodded. She heard Simon escort him out of the office; they talked in low voices while they stood in the hall. She sat, in shock, unable to process. She’d been thinking, on the plane, how alone she was, and now it appeared she was not as alone as she would like .
. . .
One of her best survival skills in the last two years had been her ability to put things out of her mind. When Simon returned, she said, “Simon, thank you for handling that.” She said it briskly, efficiently, but when he pulled her up out of the chair she clung to him. “God, Simon, why is he doing this to me?”
“You really have no idea, deep down?”
“I really don’t! There’s no one. No one’s ever been unkind to me, no one—”
“But he’s sexually jealous, Veronica, he—”
“Simon. I can’t talk about this any more. Really. John will look into it.” She pulled away from him, slightly, took a deep breath. “Let’s talk about your father.”
He hesitated for a moment, then decided he agreed. She didn’t need to dwell on this just now, and he was just the man to distract her.
“Good idea. You’re doing a wonderful job with him.”
“Oh, well, thank you. He’s doing some workbook drills. He’s really advancing amazingly well.” She looked at her nails, apparently very interested in them, despite the fact that they were short and unpolished. “Simon, I’m ashamed to say this, but I don’t have total recall of last night. I was wondering—”
“If I could fill in the blanks? I’d be happy to. Sit down.” She started for the chair in the corner, and with an impatient sound he sat at his desk and pulled her into his lap. “Sit here. That’s better. What’s the last thing you remember?”
She turned rosy red, and he grinned. “I remember leaving the restaurant and feeling—kind of silly. And I think I kissed you—”
“Oh, you did. Very thoroughly,” he said.
“And then in the car?”
“We kissed some more. In the back seat. You said some very sweet and intimate things which I am not at liberty to repeat. And you seemed very willing to, shall we say, proceed with our physical relationship.”
“Oh, God.”
“So I did the manly thing and tore myself away from your beautiful body, and by the time I left the parking lot you were fast asleep.”
“I told you. About the wine.”
“You did. Then we got home, and—”
“Yes, this is the part that concerns me. How did I get to my room?”
“I carried you. No one saw except Logan.”
“Oh, God.”
“He brought in your bags.”
“And how did I get into my pajamas?”
“I put them on you. Very fatherly, very non-sexual.”
“Simon! You could have left me there in my clothes.”
“You wanted to change.”
She turned a very dark red; her embarrassment had turned to misery. “I don’t feel very good about that.”
“Veronica! Seriously. You were uncomfortable, you kept murmuring that your, um—bra was scratching you, and you wanted to get it off.”
“Oh, my God!” She leaped off of his lap and walked to the door. She pressed her head against it. She spoke against the wood. “So you saw me naked? You sat there, looking at me—”
“No! Let me tell you something, girl, you’re heavy when you’re dead weight, and I was exhausted. I undressed you, I dressed you, and that was it. No ogling, no touching, no sex. You know, I’ve dressed Lilah plenty of times when she was sleeping; I’ve had some practice.”
“My God, I’m not a little girl!”
“No, you’re not.” His voice was appreciative.
“Simon, this isn’t a joke to me.” She was near tears.
He stood up. “Beauty, I told you something last night that you didn’t hear, so I’ll tell you again. The first time I make love to you—which I hope will be in the near future, but we’ll both know when that time is right—I want you to be present and willing and sober. I’m not going to take advantage of you when you’re drunk. I didn’t last night, and I never would. I apologize if you feel violated, but I would never, ever treat you in any way other than . . . reverently.”
“Simon,” she said, and turned into his embrace. She hugged him tightly and he breathed in the fragrance of her hair. “Simon, I can’t think about anything but you; I’m distracted. I’m not even concentrating on my work. It’s not like me. I don’t understand this. I can’t—”
He kissed her hair, feather soft, his lips barely touching her. “It’s love, Beauty.”
She laughed into his shoulder.
“Maybe sleeping together would actually help us. We both seem quite beside ourselves. Might be the best medicine,” Simon said. He was joking, trying to make her laugh, but she looked up at him with a sober expression.
“Maybe we should,” she said. Her eyes were moist with feeling, and her hands clutched his shoulders tightly. Desire flowed into him like boiling water.
“Don’t get a guy all excited,” he said softly. “You should think about this, and—”
”Tonight,” she said. “I don’t want to be alone. I’ll come to your room. Around ten o’clock?”
He stared at her, his mouth agape. “Ten o’clock,” he repeated.
She kissed him, softly, and then was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Veronica went back to Pat, to check on his workbook exercises. He was finished, and fingering a little stone in his hand, his expression thoughtful.
“You’ve been chatting with Simon,” he said as she studied his pages.
“Yes, I—had to ask him something. I think tomorrow we’ll move on to four letter words. And I have some books that I bought for you yesterday. Excellent starter books, and they’re not childish. I have them in my room.”
“Good, good.” Pat was studying her; she could feel his eyes roving her face. She looked up.
“Mind if I tell you a story?” Pat asked.
“I’d love it if you told me a story. I need a distraction.”
He nodded, as though he knew exactly what was going on. “I told you I lived on a farm. Wasn’t easy to meet girls, especially with no real schooling. My brothers and I started to get lonely, so whenever there was a chance to venture into town we did, and we’d flirt with the girls at the ice cream shop.”
Veronica smiled at the innocence of that image. Pat continued, reminiscently. “My brother Daniel met his wife there. She made him a root beer float one day. She was a counter girl, see. Name was Lillian. Six weeks later they were married. That’s how it happened with all four of my brothers—they saw the girl, and they knew.”
“How romantic,” she murmured.
“Yes. And when I was nineteen I went into town for the Fourth of July celebration. People everywhere, food of all kinds, games, booths, rides. Total confusion, lots of fun. A few times I saw a face in the crowd, a face of a girl I’d never seen. She was beautiful. I had to find her. I spent my whole day trying to catch another glimpse of her, and at dusk I did. She was talking to Seamus Hindry, a pompous ass who I remembered because every year he helped his father, our town vet, innoculate our cattle. I hated him, and I wanted to warn her to keep away. He was nothing but a masher.”
Pat placed the little polished stone in his hand carefully on the table. It was shaped like a heart. “Seamus went to get some beers. I walked right up to her. I said, ‘I’m Pat Lassiter, and you’re a beautiful girl, and you need to keep away from that Seamus Hindry. He’s nothing but a pompous, loud mouthed ass. Come stand with me and look at the fireworks.’ ”
Veronica laughed. “Oh, Pat, you didn’t!”
“I did. She laughed, too, just as you are, and she said I was funny, but it would be rude of her to desert Seamus, as he’d kindly offered to buy her a drink. I was just a boy, and I was in love. In that moment, that was all it took. I didn’t even know her name. ‘Well, as to that,’ I said, ‘I’ll buy you the whole bar if you’re thirsty.’ Of course I had barely a penny left to my name. She wanted to go with me, I knew it, but she hesitated. She had very good ma
nners. I didn’t. I pulled her to me, and I kissed her. I’d never kissed a girl the way I kissed her. It just happened. When I pulled away, I knew she was mine. She wore this dreamy expression.
“I said, “What’s your name, girl? I need to know because I intend to marry you.”
Pat looked distant, lost in his memory. “Was that Janet?” Veronica asked softly.
He smiled, misty eyed. “ ‘My name’s Janet White,’ she told me. ‘And you are very rude, young man.’ ”
“Did she come with you to see the fireworks?”
“She did. But she insisted on sharing her beer with Seamus first; then she sweetly thanked him and met me under a bank of trees, and we kissed all through the show. I don’t think I heard or saw a thing, and Barton—that was my town—had the loudest fireworks show around.”
“That’s a wonderful story. So romantic.”
“Yes.” He looked thoughtfully out the window at the windy day. “To the day she died she was never anything but young and beautiful to me.”
“Oh, Pat.” Veronica felt a sheen of tears burning her eyes.
He pushed the stone toward her. “This is my little good luck charm. Janet gave it to me once; said it was a symbol of our love. I carry it in my pocket always.”
Veronica looked at him. His expression was full of meaning. “You are equating yourself with Simon. And me.”
“We Lassiters, we’re prone to love at first sight. My father James, his uncle before him, and far back into the past I imagine, and all my brothers had it happen to them. Boom! Just in an instant. You can’t hold it against a man. And it wasn’t like that for Simon with Elizabeth, I’ll have you know. It was a long, laborious, painful courtship.” He rolled his eyes, and Veronica laughed. “It’s just you, Love. You’re the one that unleashed the old Lassiter response. And I must say I can see why.”
She held the stone and felt its smoothness, rubbing it thoughtfully between her fingers. She handed it back to him, feeling a new calm settle upon her. “Thank you for the story,” she said. “I know I’ll think of it often. Let me get those books for you.”
Love, Lust, and The Lassiters Page 8
