“Don’t argue. Not this time,” Frank said flatly. “I mean it, Loren. I want you out of here by five every night.”
Bewildered, she stared after his retreating figure. Frank was really the strangest man to work for. Brilliant in engineering, at a total loss when it came to situations requiring tact, stingy in some areas yet terribly warmhearted in others. She knew very well he was fond of her, just as she knew he had always taken advantage of her. But a simple, kind-hearted gesture with no return expected was inconceivable from Frank. What on earth happened to him today? she wondered idly, and then rather quickly picked up her coat. There was that old saying about gift horses. And she was one tired lady who had put in a few too many twelve-hour days lately; her loyalty to her job and its people was intense, but if Frank was willing to lighten her workload, she was more than willing to go home and put her feet up.
Chapter Twelve
The kitchen was alive with tantalizing smells and tastes when Buck walked in on Thursday. Loren dropped the wooden spoon in her hand, her eyes lighting to see him. “You’re early!”
“Starvation. I could smell Rayburn’s ragout all the way downtown.” He winked at the aproned man behind her. Rayburn chuckled, turning to stir one of his bubbling concoctions at the stove. “You’re running early, too, aren’t you, Loren?” Buck continued. “I thought you rarely got home until past six.”
“Hmm. By some act of God, I seem to have extra help in the office,” she remarked idly. “Anyway…”
Anyway, he looked delicious. Caramel pants complemented by a salmon-and-cream-striped shirt and tan coat. The russet hair was tamed while the green eyes distinctly were not. He projected lazy strength and a potent virility, and she had the craziest image in her head…as if she were a russet-furred fox being hunted by her mate, and she so clever, playing hide-and-seek, really praying he would catch her. “You look very handsome,” she complimented him frankly. “I did just get home and haven’t had a chance to change yet—”
“What is all this chitchat?” he demanded, descending on her. “I’ve missed you,” he murmured as he gathered her into his arms for a kiss.
Her lips parted willingly. She closed her eyes to enjoy the firm, sensual texture of his kiss and the vibrant emotions he aroused so easily with his touch. The soft texture of his jacket folded beneath her fingers as she gripped it, thinking how unfair it was that every time he kissed her, there seemed less and less reason to think rationally, to do anything but throw caution to the wind.
A throat cleared behind them, and Buck lifted his head. “How are you, Rayburn?” Buck asked.
“Just fine, just fine.” The throat cleared again. “Dinner will be ready in just a few more minutes.”
“Hip doing better?”
“Much better.” The men exchanged glances that Loren noted speculatively.
She took silverware from the drawer and passed back and forth between the dining room and kitchen, once Buck had gone in search of Bill Shephard to exchange amenities. Butter, water glasses, salt and pepper, but on the fifth trip back into the kitchen, the look that had passed between Buck and Rayburn still hugged her consciousness. “You never did tell me how you hurt your hip,” she told Rayburn as she absently stuck fresh candles into the candelabrum.
“Oh, a car accident. About seven years ago,” Rayburn answered, his soft eyes following her as she again paused by the stove for a last testing sip of the soup. He turned away, tossing a salad at the sink. “I don’t know what I would have done without Mr. Leeds. His father was in the hospital at the same time. Gallbladder, if I remember right. He had a ton of visitors.”
Loren’s hands stilled. “So you knew Mr. Leeds before?” she inquired carefully. “I mean Buck, not his father.”
“Oh, yes, Miss Loren. He used to say that there was no point in visiting his father because he already had a roomful of people in there. So he’d take me up and down the corridors when I got to the point where I could walk…”
An hour and a half later, Loren was sitting on the bed in her room, strapping on white sandals with a hint of gold in the heels. She wore white crepe slacks with a blouson top, also white, with full shoulders, its tailored lines softened by the feminine, translucent fabric.
She added no jewelry, but for once was liberal with eye makeup. Her hair she brushed back severely and set in enameled combs to keep it off her face, then she stared at the results in the mirror. To begin with, the outfit was wrong. Her closet had an ample supply of working clothes and a variety of jeans, but nothing in the way of party wear beyond the slinky black dress she’d worn to Angela’s dinner, and that wasn’t appropriate either. To some extent, the stark white was almost dramatic enough to actually pass for a party, and it brought out her own dramatic coloring, coppery hair and pewter eyes. But she wasn’t comfortable.
And she was not in a party mood. At least not in the mood for the kind of party she expected this one was going to be. She’d wasted a great deal of time when she was younger playing lounging games with the country-club set. It wasn’t a world she wanted to get into again. And tonight her distrust of people with money was exceptionally high…
Buck was sitting in a chair in the library with his legs stretched out when she came downstairs. He put his book down promptly, standing to study her as she walked in. No smile touched his features, though his green eyes were sharply alert on her expressive eyes. “Lord, you’re striking,” he murmured. He would have said more, but she was bristling like a porcupine.
“Thank you,” she said crisply.
His gaze followed her trim form as she got the coats, and she became conscious of the intriguing way the crepe fabric snugged over her bottom. She was a lady of textures for the evening. The soft white blouse contrasted with the rich, lustrous thickness of her hair. There was no metal-hardness of jewelry to mar the touchable quality that her looks invoked. And though she’d hoped the effect would be austere and cool, she saw in his amused eyes that she had totally failed.
“Are we talking?” he asked mildly as he held out her coat for her.
She glowered darkly at him. “You know damn well why I’m angry.”
“I gathered some roof was going to fall in when you barely said a word over dinner in front of your family. It couldn’t be that you decided Rayburn doesn’t suit you?”
“I adore Rayburn. It’s you. And the fact that Gramps and Angela went behind my back to go to you, as if I couldn’t handle my own problems.”
She waited, expectantly, for any excuse to hurl ninety pounds of temper at him. Buck opened the back door and ushered her through without saying another word, neither in apology nor explanation.
“I don’t need him. If I had needed help, I’m more than capable of getting it completely on my own,” she added furiously as he got into the car beside her.
Buck started the engine and backed out into the night. “Well, the thing to do then is just to let Rayburn go,” he said mildly. “I had him helping me out for a while, Loren, but I just didn’t have enough work to keep him busy. He’s got some pride about honestly being needed so if you don’t have enough for him to do…”
She averted her face, wondering vaguely what it would be like if she were a man his size and could meet him in some dark alley at midnight. “No one keeps me. That’s the point. I can pay my own way, anywhere I want to go.”
“I’m sure you can. Your pride alone keeps you in the upper income bracket, Loren.”
He wasn’t angry, but there was a hint of impatience in his voice, and she suddenly clammed up. She felt nervous inside, all muddled. In one arena, of course, she owed Buck, really owed him. Rayburn was a wonder. She loved the man, and he had fit into the family like one of themselves. And it was a wonderful, generous gesture, very much like Buck, to go out of his way to help.
So. Since the issue was settled and she had no intention of giving up Rayburn, obviously a measure of gratitude to Buck was in order. Unfortunately, her hackles were raised and her stomach was in knots. She didn�
��t want gifts she couldn’t repay in kind. She didn’t want a relationship based on obligation. She couldn’t stand owing anyone. And he was right about pride. She’d cut it all alone, and perhaps, she hadn’t coped brilliantly. But she had coped, and she was proud of that, and for anyone to come in and solve her problems with money, something she simply wasn’t able to do… Why couldn’t she and Buck just live on an island? she thought fleetingly. Alone together the two of them could make it, she knew it…
It was not an island that Buck pulled up to a short time later. The house was an architect’s dream, an expensive brick and stone affair built on a ravine. The house belonged to Buck’s old school chum, Roger Long. A maid in black uniform opened the door for them, wearing an adorable and thoroughly pretentious little cap on her head. Loren smiled brittlely, already prepared for the house’s interior by the look of the outside. She’d been there about a hundred years ago.
People were milling everywhere, the women dressed in everything from suede jeans to gold lamé. Sounds varied from the clink of glasses to the tinkle of jewelry to the kind of sexy laughter that had to be cultivated through practice at parties like these. No paired couples allowed, no sitting down, and there was a clear-cut pecking order based on status. There was also a kind of desperate enthusiasm to have a good time.
Loren glanced back at Buck to see an expression of grim distaste on his mouth. “Now you’ve got the excuse to vent your temper,” he growled next to her. “Hell, I thought this was going to be a quiet little celebration. Not a circus.”
“Personally, I love parties,” she assured him pleasantly, accepting a glass of champagne from a passing man in a navy suit, who winked appreciatively at her. “Adore them,” she repeated, glancing back at Buck.
His eyes were following the navy-suited bartender; they were shooting out buckshot. Green buckshot. “Loren, no one’s going to miss us if we just get out of here.”
She shook her head determinedly. “They’re your friends. If you’re worrying that I can’t fend for myself in this kind of group, Buck, don’t.”
He glared at her. “Of course I wasn’t—”
“Bucky!” shrieked a tall blonde in scarlet silk, who weaved through small clusters of people to throw her arms around him. The kiss was noisy and exuberant. “Wait until I tell Roger you’re here. Oh, Buck, he’s so mad at me—he agreed to this little party and then when I told him how many people were coming—”
Loren waved her fingers goodbye and slipped away, her smile bright as she wandered the crowded rooms. She had no intention of clinging to him. For that matter, she wanted it clearly understood that he was perfectly free to enjoy himself.
The decor of the house was chrome and pale gray, starkly modern and expensive, and faced onto a wooded ravine. All the sterility in, all the richness out; to Loren, it was the perfect symbol of what happened to people with too much money. The upstairs was more interesting. One Jacuzzi. One steam room. Bedrooms. Mauve. Olive. Blue. Crimson—whoops, occupied. She took another sip of her champagne in the hall and found a second set of stairs that led down to the kitchen.
Four women were seated at the kitchen table, munching hors d’oeuvres, one without a front to her dress beyond two straps that hung down to her waist. There was a fifth empty chair, and Loren took it. Introductions were made, and it didn’t take ten minutes before she blended with the group, bringing old skills out of cold storage to mix with these wealthy, bored suburban females whose chief exercise was honing tongues. Furs were the immediate topic of conversation.
“I doubt very much you’d be nearly as concerned with the ‘endangered species’ list, darling, if Howard had actually sprung for a coat for you last Christmas,” a platinum blonde addressed a dark-haired woman.
The brunette flushed. “Howard can be more than generous, Marge…” She extended a long slender hand with dark red nail polish gleaming, the bauble on her finger designed to snare any stocking within a five-mile radius. The jewel was promptly judged, complimented and examined, and then it was a case of around the horn. The platinum blonde flashed a ring of emeralds, and the bare-breasted wonder next to Loren sexily drew a long slim leg on the table to show off an ankle bracelet of tiny emeralds and rubies. “Christmas—red and green. But what on earth can I wear with it?” she wailed.
The others laughed and turned expectantly to Loren. She wore no jewelry, nor did she immediately have anything to say. “Whom did you say you were with, dear?” the brunette offered, dripping kindness.
“Actually, I didn’t, but I came with Buck. Buck Leeds.” Having admitted that, Loren thought wryly that she could hardly leave the group thinking Buck was less generous than Howie. “He forbade me to wear any jewelry tonight,” she admitted conspiratorially. “You see, he’d just given me this lovely little three-carat ruby, and I lost it. It tangled up with this other chain I had—”
Buck’s hands suddenly clenched on her shoulders like a vise.
“That’s just terrible,” said the vacant-eyed blonde, looking up at Buck with a speculative gleam.
“I’m still in disgrace,” Loren whispered. Buck’s pull on her shoulders threatened imminent traction if she didn’t rise. She glanced up only long enough to catch three carats of emerald glitter in his eyes before she was herded into the other room. “So,” he murmured as he all but pushed her through the crowded throng of people, “we’re not exactly in a mood to behave ourselves this evening.”
“Not exactly,” she murmured back, retrieving a second glass of champagne from the same navy-suited waiter. This time she winked back. “Are you having a good time?”
“Watching you, I may yet. Unless you want to go?”
“Stay,” she insisted pleasantly. She had to sip the champagne rather quickly to avoid spilling it when he grabbed her hand to pull her toward their host.
She relaxed for the first time that evening when Roger Long’s notion of an introduction turned out to be a kiss on both cheeks and the sparkle of an approving gaze. He sported a curly Afro and mod clothes, but the smile was genuine—the first of that breed she’d seen all evening—and his brown eyes struck her as honestly warm. He was an attorney whose star was on the rise, abetted without question by the ambitious and willowy blonde who’d assaulted Buck at the door.
Unfortunately, Buck was drawn from her side into another conversation, and then two men walked up to Roger. Rather than hanging in uncomfortably as the lone lady with the three men, she quietly detached herself again. After finding a bathroom, she ran a brush through her hair and reapplied lipstick. Once she came back out, she found Buck still engrossed in conversation with another man and Roger. She wandered down a few steps to a second living room off the ravine.
In the far corner was an empty couch shrouded in semidarkness that offered a quasi-haven, at least for a few minutes. She curled up on the corner of the couch, slipped off one shoe so she could comfortably tug one leg under her, took a sip from her champagne and just for a second closed her eyes. She should have known better than to come here tonight. She should have known better than to get involved in any way with a man with money.
“Are you new to the neighborhood? I don’t remember seeing you before…”
Her eyes opened as she felt a depression in the cushion next to her. The man with his hand on her shoulder was the all-American high-school football hero, aged fifteen years, prepared to be as lecherous on a couch in a crowded room as he’d undoubtedly been in the backseat of a car at a drive-in movie fifteen years ago. Loren gave a mental sigh of resignation. The conversation moved right along to the man’s open marriage, as he established less than subtly that he was married, that he was looking, that he liked redheads, and that his wife didn’t mind.
Loren beamed at him sympathetically. “Thank heaven we’ve broken out of the Victorian era,” she agreed. “It’s always been such a joke that a man or woman should be or even could be monogamous. The whole subject’s a bore.”
He loved her.
“The best thing abo
ut that kind of marriage is what happens to the children,” Loren continued enthusiastically. “Naturally, the question of paternity arises. Do you have any children?” He opened his mouth in obvious denial, so she continued, “I can see the society of the future, where children are a completely communal responsibility…”‘
His hand edged back from her thigh in time for Buck to see the byplay. All-American was beginning to look restless. Buck, by contrast, was looking lazily relaxed as he folded his long length into a chair a few feet from them both, out of All-American’s vision but clearly in Loren’s. He sipped at the drink in his hand, simply watching with bland features, occasionally darting a look at some passer-by in the vicinity.
“There’s a tribe in Ghana with marvelous sexual customs. The woman has the baby, and then she gives it to her mate’s brother to raise. If she has another baby, that one goes to her mate’s uncle. She never has to worry about raising her offspring herself; she can just go from man to man—”
“Yes,” All-American said restlessly. “But we seem to be talking about nothing but children, darling—”
“We seem to be,” Loren agreed pleasantly. “Don’t you like children?”
“Of course. But—”
“They don’t fit into your lifestyle?” Loren asked sympathetically. “Oh, well. Who needs children?”
Buck stood up. “Put him out of his misery, Loren,” he said flatly.
The blond’s head did a sixty-degree whirl, first around and then directly up, then flashing from Buck’s face back to Loren, who was still smiling warmly at him. She patted his husky knee and leaned forward to whisper, “He doesn’t actually share all of our views,” before standing up.
Out in the cold silent night, Buck fastened the frogs of her raincoat and then let her lead the way to the car, encouraged by pats that connected unerringly with her bottom.
Kisses From Heaven Page 13
