All Night Long

by Candace Schuler

  She sat down. "Well, then, let's get right down to it, shall we?" She reached for a pen with one hand and pulled a lined yellow pad toward her with the other. "What are your requirements?"

  "Requirements?"

  "What kind of person are you looking for?"

  Matt didn't even have to think about it. "Someone who would be a good companion," he said.

  His answer surprised her. She'd been expecting him to begin with a description of the physical attributes he required in a woman. That was where most men started.

  "Well-educated or at least well-read," he added, when she didn't say anything. "Someone who's interested in current events, and who likes music and books and the ballet. Someone refined and—" he paused, looking for just the right word "—well-bred."

  "Refined and well-bred," she said, nodding sagely as she scribbled on the pad in front of her. No wonder all those eager women throwing themselves at his polished calfskin wing tips weren't having any luck. Wants a lady, she wrote, her brows drawn together in a frown as she bracketed the last word in heavy quotes.

  "Is that a problem?"

  Only because it eliminates me as a candidate, Susannah thought before she could stop herself. She shook her head, both at him and herself. She wasn't in the market for a man, especially not one who wanted a woman to conform to the narrowly defined role of lady. Even if he did have the sexiest voice and the clearest blue eyes she'd ever encountered.

  "What you're saying is that you want someone who could fit easily into San Francisco society," she said briskly, determined to push all thoughts of his admittedly impressive attractions aside. "Right?"

  "Yes. Exactly," Matt said, relieved that she understood him so perfectly.

  "What about hobbies? Any special interests besides the ballet?"

  "The opera and symphony. Golf. Gardening." He thought about it for a second or two. "Some knowledge of roses would be a nice plus."

  "Roses?" Susannah murmured, trying to imagine Matthew Ryan, cutthroat trial lawyer, with pruning shears in one hand and a basket of fresh-cut roses in the other. The image wouldn't quite come into focus.

  "My mother's famous for her roses," he explained.

  "Ah," she murmured knowingly. A thoughtful son, she wrote. Wants a woman who will get along with his mother. Could be ready to get serious about someone. She brushed away the niggling feeling of displeasure the thought gave her and added an exclamation point for emphasis. People who were ready to settle down were her favorite type of clients. It was so satisfying when she finally matched them up. "I assume you're looking for someone with similar political leanings?" She tilted her head, looking at him from under a tumble of auburn curls and a delicately lifted eyebrow. "No bleeding-heart liberals need apply?"

  "No rigid conservatives, either."

  Her eyebrow rose higher, inviting him to elaborate.

  "We Ryans aren't nearly as stiff-necked as most people think," he said, his gaze meeting hers across the width of the desk. He smiled. Warmly. Intimately. Instinctively reacting to the unconscious flirtatiousness in her manner. "Honest."

  Their gazes held for a brief, breathless second. An answering smile hovered on Susannah's lips. And then she flushed and looked back down at the pad in front of her. "How about religion?" she asked, telling herself to ignore the way his smile made those sexy blue eyes of his crinkle up at the corners. I am not interested! "Is it an important issue?"

  "Well..." Matt shifted in his seat and looked down at the toe of his shoe as if it were the most interesting thing in the room. Stop thinking about kissing her, he told himself sternly. Just stop wondering what that luscious mouth of hers would taste like. "My family is Christian and we go to church most Sundays but, no—" he shook his head slightly "—it isn't a major issue."

  Susannah nodded her understanding. Tolerant, she wrote.

  "As long as we aren't talking practicing pagans or anything else too far from the mainstream," he added.

  Up to a point, she noted.

  "Do you have any special physical requirements?" she asked, telling herself that her interest in his answer was strictly professional.

  "Physical requirements?" Matt asked.

  "Height? Weight? Measurements? Complexion? Hair color? You know—" she risked a quick glance up at him without quite looking him in the eyes "—physical type?"

  "Well, ah..." He hadn't given a thought to what his mother's physical type might be. His father had been a trim, fit man of average height with sandy brown hair and blue eyes. His most distinguishing feature had been the impassioned light blazing in those eyes whenever he talked about justice and the law. That, and the proud, upright way he'd carried himself until the series of strokes that finally took his life.

  "I don't need a detailed list of specific characteristics," Susannah prompted. "Unless there's some physical attribute you feel is especially important. A certain minimum height, for example..." She let her voice trail off, hoping to encourage him to answer. Not that she expected a man like Matthew Ryan to actually get down to specifics like breast size or maximum allowable hip measurement the way some of her clients did. He was more sophisticated than that. "A general description is all I need," she said, her pen poised over the yellow pad, ready to take down all the polite euphemisms sophisticated men used for "built like a brick outhouse." Words like tall, elegant, statuesque, blond...

  "Well, average height, I guess," Matt said at last, trying to picture his father in his mind. "Average weight. Not fat but not too skinny, either. And definitely not muscle-bound." He grimaced slightly. "You know the type I mean? The ones who look like they spend all day at the gym?"

  "I think I know exactly what you mean," Susannah said, amazed and approving, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Might actually be interested in a real woman, she wrote, and added two exclamation points. "Anything else?" She sneaked another quick peek at him from under her lashes as she asked the question.

  Matt was still scowling at the toe of his shoe and missed her admiring look. "Neatly groomed," he said. His mother was fastidious about her own personal appearance. "And healthy," he added, thinking that it wouldn't do to have his mother's activities curtailed by someone who wasn't in good physical condition. She was very active for a woman her age.

  Health conscious, she wrote. "Does that mean you'll be amenable to an HIV test?"

  That brought his head up. "An HIV test?" Matt echoed disbelievingly. His mother, refined society matron, respected widow of a California supreme court justice, member of the San Francisco Garden Club, a sponsor of the Junior Symphony, his mother, take an HIV test? The thought was ludicrous in the extreme. "That won't be necessary," he said brusquely.

  "Taking an HIV test doesn't imply anything about anyone's morals or sexual orientation," Susannah said earnestly, looking up from the yellow pad to press her point. "In this day and age, it's simply a wise precaution any prudent person should take before embarking on a, ah..."

  Their eyes met again, despite their best efforts not to let it happen. Unwanted awareness sizzled between them, skittering along their nerve endings like drops of icy-cold water on a red-hot griddle.

  Matt shifted on the faded green love seat.

  Susannah caught her breath.

  But neither one of them looked away this time.

  "...on a new, ah..." Susannah said, trying desperately to control her train of thought. She had this discussion with most of her clients sooner or later; it was nothing to get embarrassed about. Or excited about, either. So why is my heart suddenly beating a mile a minute? "A new..."

  Matt leaned forward expectantly as her lips shaped the words, his long, lean body as tense as if he were awaiting the verdict in a precedent-setting trial.

  "...sexual relationship," she finished breathlessly and waited, her gaze locked on his, for what would happen next.

  They stared at each other for a heartbeat's worth of time that seemed to last for an eon. Diamond-bright blue eyes bored into melting brown ones. Tempted and tem
pting. Speculating. Wondering. Fantasizing. Wanting. Denying.

  I haven't got time for this, Matt told himself sternly. Not on top of everything else I've got on my plate right now. And, besides, she's not even really my type.

  He's a client, Susannah reminded herself. It would be unethical to get involved with a client. And he's not really my type, anyway.

  They both looked away.

  "An HIV test won't be necessary," Matt repeated firmly. He leaned back against the love seat and carefully picked a nonexistent piece of lint off the knee of his immaculate navy-blue slacks to avoid looking at her.

  Susannah abandoned her attempt to convince him of the wisdom of an HIV test, abruptly deciding he was perfectly capable of making his own decisions regarding his health. "Any preference as to hair color?" she asked, her head lowered, her gaze glued to the yellow legal pad in front of her.

  "As long as it's not pink or purple or something crazy like that, it doesn't matter," he said shortly, eager to have this interview over and done with. "Eyes, either," he added, anticipating her next question. "I'd just like to find someone who's presentable and pleasant."

  "How do you feel about smoking?"

  "Nonsmoker, definitely."

  "Drinking?"

  "In moderation."

  "Age range?"

  "Ah...fifty-five to sixty-five." His mother was fifty-eight; his father had been sixty-two when he died.

  That startled Susannah into lifting her head again. "Fifty-five to sixty-five?" she echoed, sure she couldn't possibly have heard him right.

  "Maybe seventy," Matt allowed. "If he's a really young seventy."

  "Seventy?" she said, incredulous. And then it hit her. Her eyes widened, her eyebrows rising into twin arches of disbelief and surprise. Had Matthew Ryan really said he?

  Chapter 2

  Half a dozen disjointed thoughts tumbled through her mind in the next few seconds.

  He can't be!

  And even if he is, why would he want someone so much older than himself?

  He must be absolutely crazy to risk his political career like this.!

  And even crazier to be so cavalier about the possibility of AIDS.

  No wonder he wanted to speak to me in private.

  And then, finally, from the deepest, most feminine recesses of her soul came the plaintive lament, What a waste.

  Prodded by her silence, Matt looked up from his studied contemplation of the crease in his slacks. "I take it you think seventy is too old," he said when she just sat there with her pen poised above the yellow pad, staring at him with an odd expression on her face.

  Susannah shook her head, wondering how on earth she could have misread him so completely. It wasn't as if he hadn't given her plenty of clues, she realized, both subtle and otherwise. Everything he'd said about an interest in the ballet and the opera being of primary importance...about roses and refinement...about the need for complete discretion. And the way he'd tried to avoid her gaze. It was all so clear. Now.

  "Seventy isn't too old?"

  "No, it's, ah..." She cleared her throat. "It's..."

  "It's what?" he demanded, vaguely irritated by the way she just sat there, staring at him as if he'd suddenly grown a second head. "What's the matter?"

  "Seventy's fine," she managed in a strangled voice. "If that's what you want, it's fine."

  Matt snorted inelegantly. "Right," he said, pinning her with the look he used on uncooperative witnesses. "Now try the truth. What's the matter?"

  She opened her mouth to answer him but nothing came out. What could she say? His sexual preferences were really none of her business. Except that it meant she needed to tell him The Personal Touch didn't handle same-sex pairings. Only how? In her nearly three years running a dating service, it had never come up before. Not once. She closed her mouth without saying a word.

  "Susannah?"

  "I just can't believe you're gay," she blurted, and then blushed beet-red.

  Matt sat bolt upright on the love seat. "What!"

  "I mean I can believe it, of course," she said, trying to cover the awkwardness of the moment with words, "because there you are, big as life. It's just that, when you first came in here, I didn't even begin to imagine you were." Was it politically correct to say that? "Not that there's any need to imagine it because lots of people are," she added, in case it wasn't. "Gay, that is. It's not as if it's unusual or anything. It's just that I assumed... I mean, you're just so hand—" No, that was definitely an unenlightened thing to say! And stupid, too. Looks had nothing to do with it. "You're in the newspapers so often and I've never heard any rumors or anything. And the way you looked at me... I mean," she corrected herself, "the way I thought you looked at me." She lifted her shoulders in a self-deprecating little shrug and tried to smile. The attempt was more than a little sheepish. "I didn't think you were, is all. I'm sorry if I've embarrassed you." And myself, she thought, cringing inwardly at the memory of the way she'd... well, ogled him when he obviously didn't want to be ogled. By a woman, anyway.

  "Gay?" he said, just to be sure.

  Susannah nodded.

  Matt didn't know whether to be angry or insulted or...what. His first instinct was to leap across the desk and prove her wrong in some irrefutable and satisfying physical way. But Matt rarely went with his first instincts. His analytical lawyer's mind was too disciplined for that. Still, the urge to commit some overwhelmingly macho act in his own defense was undeniably there.

  No one had ever questioned his sexual orientation before. He was utterly amazed that anyone would question it at all, ever. Especially a woman for whom he'd developed a rapidly escalating case of the hots from practically the moment he'd laid eyes on her. It was almost funny. Almost.

  He stared at her for a moment, his expression revealing none of what he was feeling, neither the inchoate sense of masculine outrage nor the nascent urge to laugh. He relaxed against the back of the love seat, deliberately making his body language less threatening and accusatory. Any defense lawyer who'd ever faced him in a courtroom would have shuddered and said he was getting ready to rip a witness apart in cross-examination. "What led you to believe I'm gay?" he asked blandly.

  "Well, actually, I didn't at first," Susannah admitted, sure he must already know that much. "Not until you said you didn't care if he was seventy, as long as he was a young seventy. I'm embarrassed to admit it but I actually thought you were talking about a woman up until that point." Her eyes meet his, wide and guileless.

  Matt felt his lips twitch with the need to smile. He ruthlessly quelled the need and continued to gaze at her, silently calling forth more information.

  "I didn't realize you were describing your ideal man." Her tone was faintly accusing, as if she suspected him of having misled her on purpose.

  With a strangled sound, somewhere between a groan and a snort of smothered laughter, Matt's sense of outraged masculinity finally succumbed to the absurdity of the situation. The really funny part, he thought, was that she was absolutely right. He had been describing the ideal man.

  "For my mother," he said, still struggling to hide his smile.

  The woman who had innocently impugned his manhood stared at him as if he'd gone crazy. "Your mother?"

  "I was describing a man for my mother."

  She stared at him blankly, unable to put what he'd just said together with what had gone before.

  "To date my mother," Matt clarified, his piercing blue eyes dancing with barely suppressed merriment. "She's a widow."

  "To date your..." Comprehension dawned. "Oh, good Lord." The rosy color in her cheeks, which had faded somewhat in the last few moments, bloomed into full color again. "Your mother." She covered her burning cheeks with both hands and stared at him over them. "Oh, good Lord," she said again, unable to think of anything more apropos to the situation.

  Matt's hidden smile curved into a full-fledged grin. "Yes, I'd say that just about covers it," he agreed, enjoying her flustered consternation.

&nbs
p; Susannah stared back at him for a second longer, taking in his grin and the amusement lurking in his eyes. Her hands dropped back down to the desk. "You're not angry," she said wonderingly, hardly able to believe it. Most heterosexual males of her acquaintance would be furious—or, at least, highly installed by her assumption.

  "I'm crushed," he said, clearly not crushed at all. "My ego may never recover from the blow."

  Susannah couldn't stop her lips from curving up into a small answering smile. "Somehow I doubt even a Sherman tank could crush your ego," she said, her tone half-admiring. "But I'm really sorry, anyway." And vastly—unaccountably, she told herself—relieved. "I just assumed you were here to find a date for yourself. A quite natural assumption, under the circumstances," she added in her own defense.

  "Oh, quite natural," he murmured, still grinning.

  "And when you said he, well...." She lifted one hand, palm up. "What can I say?" Her smile widened to match his. "I jumped to an obviously erroneous conclusion."

  "You didn't think it was so obvious a minute ago," Matt reminded her, unable to resist the urge to tease her. She blushed so beautifully, the rosy color staining her cheeks and throat before spreading downward under the lacy collar of her blouse. The expression in his eyes heated as he wondered just how far down the color went. Because she'd had the temerity to suspect him of being gay, he let the heat build. And made sure she felt it.

  Susannah took a quick little breath. "Yes, well..." She flicked her hand, brushing the remark—and the heat—aside, and picked up her pen. "Shall we start over?" she said briskly, intent on putting the whole embarrassing episode behind her. "The notes I took—" she tapped the pad with the point of her pen "—aren't going to be very helpful the way they are."

  * * *

  "I've got to warn you, Matt, I've never worked this way before," Susannah said fifteen minutes later, after he'd told her what he felt were all the pertinent facts about his mother. "I've never matched up anyone without meeting both parties face-to-face first. Matchmaking for me has always been much more than a matter of pairing up lists of compatible likes and dislikes," she explained, indicating the notepad in front of her. "I rely on my impressions and intuition about a person, too."