by Alison Kent
The next hour in the basement room was spent in prep. The girls were able to use the electrical outlets, for Shandi’s mirrors and straightening irons, in the booth that controlled the bar’s sound system, lighting and smoke machine.
She managed to deflect the questions about her relationship with Quentin with the standard reply that he was a temporary diversion and would be gone from her life in two days. It didn’t work. Her girlfriends were relentless.
While Shandi chose a foundation, April was the first to start in. “Seriously, Shan. I know how important all this makeup-artist-as-a-career thing is to you—”
“A career thing?” Shandi glared at April’s reflection in the mirror. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You know.” April leaned forward to check the shadows beneath her eyes. “A career thing. And please tell me you have concealer.”
One of Shandi’s brows went up. “Like your gallery and jewelry design is a career thing? Or like Kit’s PR work is a career thing?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s just that the point comes where you have to ask yourself—where we all have to ask ourselves—what we’re willing to sacrifice. The man for the career or the career for the man.”
What? Now April was channeling Dr. Phil? Shandi started in with her sponge, smoothing the sheer color. “So those are the only two choices?”
“You have others?”
“Yes, I have others. What about sacrificing dreams and goals and self-respect and one’s identity and—”
“Okay, okay.” Kit held up both hands, laughing. “I think we get the point.”
“You may,” April said. “I certainly don’t.”
“I can’t believe you,” Shandi said, jamming her hands to her hips. “You’re the one letting your family stand in the way of your love life.”
“You’re right. I have been.” April turned in her chair and looked up to meet Shandi’s gaze. “But I’ve also been thinking a lot lately about that choice.”
She felt a prickle of unease at that. She turned back to her case for brushes and blush. “And have you come up with any brilliant conclusions?”
“I don’t know about brilliant,” April said, studying her nails. “But I do know that I haven’t been fair to Evan or to myself.”
Wow. That certainly shut Shandi up. She went to work on April’s cheekbones. “Does that mean you’re going to cut your ties with your family or finally introduce him to your parents?”
“I’m actually considering a combination. And,” April went on, pointing a finger at Shandi, “I owe it all to you.”
Shandi’s hands stilled. “To me? How so?”
“Because of who you are. You make no bones about your priorities. You’ve done what you’ve had to do to get what you want, including stepping on your family’s toes on your way out the door.”
“If it had only been toes, it would’ve been a lot easier,” Shandi admitted, surprised to learn that her own personal battle had influenced April. “It was more like I crushed everything they believe about family, as if I counted it no more important than a vat of grapes I would stomp into wine.”
“Wow,” Kit said. “That’s deep.”
“No. It’s sad. And constricting. And demoralizing. Can you imagine your own family telling you what to do with your life? And telling you doing anything else means you have no respect for them?”
Both April and Kit fell silent. Shandi, too. She hadn’t meant to blow up like that, she mused, rummaging for eye-shadow colors that ran the gamut from cream to terra-cotta to sienna to rich chocolate-brown. She’d accepted her family’s narrow outlook for what it was.
Their inability to deal with change. Their prejudice against progress. Their refusal to embrace what they didn’t understand or anything that fell outside of their comfort zone.
But their way of seeing the world meant that she’d had to make the choice to leave that safety net behind or be strangled by it. And she wasn’t sure she still wasn’t trailing pieces of the webbing with her.
Because here she was still basing what she did on how they would react when doing so tied her to them as much as if she still lived in their white-frame house on the outskirts of Round-Up.
“But enough about my life,” she finally said with a bittersweet laugh. “Let’s get you two beauties on stage. And while you’re there keep your paws off my man.”
The next half hour was spent applying and blending colors to eyes, lips and cheeks, as well as taming the two contrasting heads of hair. The three women giggled about good dates and bad dates and all manner of in-betweens while Shandi tended to the others, perfecting their look.
“So all that heavy-duty rhetoric about career and family doesn’t change a thing, does it?” Once Shandi began packing away the tools of her trade, Kit stood, smoothed down the slimming lines of her sheath, her blond hair giving off a near-white sheen. “It’s still all about the birds and the bees and that crazy little thing called love.”
“Don’t look at me if you’re going to be using the L word,” Shandi scoffed, turning off her lighted mirrors and the straightening irons. “I’ve got a project due in two weeks, no time to be standing here swooning.”
“Right,” April said, dusting a brush over the shine on her nose one last time. “You’re the one who made the chocolate mess when your man came into the room.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Shandi groused, herding the two back into Exhibit A’s main room. Now was not the time to continue this conversation.
Evan had set up his lighting equipment around the circular platform and positioned his tripod off to the side. For now, his camera hung around his neck. And as Shandi had instructed, he’d set two of the funky black chairs borrowed from Erotique on the stage.
As much as she owed Quentin for helping her out, she owed Kit just as much for clearing the personal use of the room with Janice. They had a window of four hours before the crew would arrive to begin setting up the bar for tonight. Which meant the show needed to get on the road.
But as Evan helped situate both women in the chairs on the stage, Shandi had eyes only for Quentin. She’d deferred to her photographer’s expertise and hadn’t touched a hair on his head. While Kit and April both defined the word sleek, Quentin was the antithesis.
He was, in fact, the epitome of wild. From the glint in his eyes that reminded her so clearly of what they’d done last night to the way his hair appeared to have been styled by a lover while she writhed beneath him.
He looked like sex. Living, breathing sex. And as much as she tried to focus on Evan’s directions, she finally had to back away to the closest banquette and sit. Sit and watch and try not to drool.
Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But it was very, very close. She did her best to remain analytical, critical, an artist at work. When that failed totally, she worked to assume the role of impartial bystander, a spectator enjoying a show.
Nothing. It wasn’t happening. All she could think about was getting her hands on him, kissing him, tearing him out of his clothes. That and the way he made her laugh and hope. The way he teased her and took all that she dished out.
He was a good man and he cared about her future, her happiness. About her.
And seeing him now up on that stage, straddling the bar chair in reverse, his arms braced along the top, his feet hooked on the stabilizing rungs, the fit of his clothing revealing the body beneath…
Oh, but she was in such serious trouble here.
Kit stood on his right, her back to him, her arms crossed over her chest, her feet spread wide. April stood on his left in a mirror position. They were the lionesses of his pride. The blonde and the brunette. The colors of their shoes and clothing the reverse of their own. Quentin was the king. The protector, the leader, the virile and savage beast.
And Shandi thought she would die from the way she wanted to belong to him, to be his mate for life.
ONCE AGAIN, EVAN COULDN’T sleep, the cause of his insomnia nothing new. For the past year since they’d sta
rted dating, he’d been spending half his nights on April’s sofa, sleeping only a fraction of the hours he was there.
Now that he was spending his nights in her bed, he wasn’t sleeping at all.
Neither was he having sex.
Celibacy hadn’t been a problem when he’d slept out in the other room. And it wasn’t so much a problem in here either. Except that it was.
He respected that she wanted to wait and that their waiting would continue until they were married. But being this close to her was a physical burden he thought he’d be better equipped to bear.
When she’d told him she wanted him near, he knew sleeping beside her wasn’t going to be the cakewalk he’d convinced himself he could make it. Taking matters into his own hands only cooled him temporarily.
And that wasn’t the least bit hard to understand. Hell, he could grow hard standing behind the coffee bar at work simply by looking up and catching April’s eye should she smile at him over the rim of her cup.
He loved her. He wanted to make love with her.
Instead he moved away and turned onto his side, hugging the far edge of the bed and counting wolves. With the night he was having, he wasn’t surprised when he closed his eyes to find they’d eaten the sheep.
Less than thirty seconds later April asked, “You’re not sleeping, are you?”
“Not for a lack of trying.”
“Can we talk?”
“Sure.” He started to roll to his back but waited. It just seemed smart to let her set the course, to make the first move. He didn’t want to embark on one that was wrong.
“This hasn’t been fair, me asking you to sleep in here with me,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I know you haven’t complained, but I also know that neither one of us is sleeping worth a damn.”
He smiled to himself. April so seldom cursed it was strange to hear even the tamest of swear words come out of her mouth. “I can move back to the couch. Or I can just stay at the apartment. Whatever you think is best.”
“What I think is best is that we stop waiting.”
Time froze. He froze. The air froze, her words crackling like icicles waiting to fall. “Waiting? For sex?”
“Yes.” Another deep breath. Another exhalation. “And no.”
He wasn’t sure which was the good news and which was the bad. “If you have a solution, I’m listening.”
“I do, but I don’t want you to think less of me for suggesting it.” The covers rustled as she moved.
Okay. This time he was rolling over. He’d keep his hands to himself, the sheet tucked down between them. But he needed to see her face.
Her face was beautiful. Soft in the light filtering in through the tiny slit above the blinds in the window. She’d hooked her hair behind her ear, and a tiny diamond stud—she’d told him the earrings were an eighteenth birthday gift from her parents—sparkled on her lobe.
“April, talk to me. I could never think less of you for anything you think or say.”
“Well, you should. I’m a horrible person at times.” Tears glistened in the corners of her eyes. “Selfish and material, and I don’t pay the attention to you and your feelings that a fiancée should.”
His heart thudded. “Is that what you are now? My fiancée?”
She nodded. “I’d like to be.”
He reached over, ran an index finger around the shell of her ear. “How long of an engagement were you planning?”
“That depends. Are you particular about the type of wedding we have?”
He chuckled. “Hardly. I’m the pauper in this relationship, remember? I seriously doubt my grandmother would unlock that tight wad of hers for much of anything.”
“Especially since you’re marrying me.”
What could he say? “She is who she is. Generous when it suits her needs. Penny-pinching when it doesn’t. And trust me, me getting married doesn’t suit at all.”
April sighed, rolled onto her back, pulled the comforter up beneath her chin. “Does it suit you?”
She asked the question so softly, he wasn’t sure that he was hearing what she was trying to say. “Yes. Of course. Why would you ask me that?”
“Because if it suits you,” she said, turning only her head to make eye contact, “and if you’re not set on a big fancy wedding, then I’d like to make a suggestion.”
He didn’t think it was possible to care less about a wedding. “Does it involve anything illegal, immoral, wicked or depraved?”
“No.” Smiling, she shook her head on the pillow. “Unless you have a problem cutting classes for two days.”
14
“I’VE DONE SOMETHING YOU’RE probably going to hate me for,” Quentin said as, still rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Shandi pulled open her door at what felt like the crack of dawn Monday morning.
“Uh, okay.” She tugged her ratty chenille bathrobe tighter, wishing he had called before coming so she’d at least have brushed her teeth.
He walked by her into the room without waiting for her invitation. “Tomorrow’s your night off, right?”
“Usually.” And Tuesday usually was. She shut the door, locked it again. “I’m working for Armand.”
“You were. You’re not now.” Hands at his hips, Quentin studied the floor a long moment before looking back up. “This is that thing you’re going to hate.”
“Hate?” Right. He’d said something about that earlier. Ugh, she wasn’t even awake enough to process anything; why was he here? “What did you do?”
“I threw around my Grammy-winning-record-producer reputation and got you two nights off in a row,” he said, his guilty expression out of proportion to his crime.
Two nights off in a row didn’t sound so bad. At least, not right now when she was as tired as she was. “Why?”
“Because I’m taking you to Austin with me.”
She frowned, muzzy-headed and things taking way too long to clear. “I thought you were leaving tomorrow.”
“I was. I changed my mind.” He was so animated she couldn’t look away. His smile bright. His eyes brighter. “I’m ready to get home, but I want to take you with me.”
Argh! How many times did they have to go through this? “I don’t want to go to Texas,” she whined.
He held up both hands. “It’s not to stay. It’s just a visit. I want you to see my place and the lot where I’m going to build my studio.”
She backed up, unsteady, stumbled her way to the table and sat. Quentin moved into the kitchen, rummaged through her cabinets for a mug, found the coffee beans already in the grinder and hit the switch.
She sat at the table and watched him make himself at home. He filled her coffeemaker with filtered water, measured out the freshly ground beans, hovered while the carafe filled as if wanting to be sure she got the hottest and freshest cup possible.
How could she adore him one minute and be so frustrated with him the next? He was kind and thoughtful, one of that breed of a few good men. He wanted to take care of her, to help her reach her goals.
He’d offered her an alternative to the several years of struggling that lay ahead. Was she insane to let her pride stand in the way? Was she trying to prove to him that she wasn’t like the women who wanted to use him?
Or was she trying to prove to herself that she could do anything she set her mind to and make it on her own? To prove to her family that they were wrong about her? That she wasn’t going to fail as they’d predicted?
She supposed it was a mixture of all of the above. What she feared most, however, was that taking Quentin up on his offer would mean that she had failed. That her family had been right about her all along.
That she was nothing but a long-legged, willowy cat’s tail of a filly who served drinks in the Thirsty Rattler, as did all the Fosseys of Round-Up. But she was more. She had to be more. She knew she was, as did Quentin.
And that was the bottom line, wasn’t it? What she thought about herself even more than what he thought about her? She loved him and was c
ertain he was falling in love with her. He showed his feelings in everything he did.
Sighing, she rested her head on the table and watched him—an activity that was easy to do. She’d spent so much time doing it yesterday at the photo shoot that she’d had trouble focusing on the bigger picture of the project.
She groaned at the thought. “I’m so going to flunk out of school.”
“What? Just because you couldn’t keep your eyes off my ass, you think your project’s going to bomb?”
She lifted her head just enough to stick out her tongue. “Evan’s supposed to burn the pictures to a CD today. I guess I’ll see later whether I need to start shopping for a cardboard box.”
“No, because later you’ll be in Texas.”
“Oh, right. Remind me why I’m going?”
He didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t even look over when she asked.
All he did was pour her a cup of coffee and carry it to the table along with a spoon, the two pink packets of sweetener he knew that she’d use and a half-pint carton of cream from the fridge.
Only then did he finally take time to reply. “I’m not ready to write you out of my life. The other night, Saturday—or Sunday morning, I guess it was—when we made love… And we did make love, Shandi. That wasn’t just sex.”
“I know,” she admitted, because he wasn’t going to go on until she’d given him a response.
“It was singular and beautiful and it’s what makes a relationship work.” He paused, swallowed. “That sort of bond. That connection. It’s intimate and raw and totally pure. And so very rare.”
Then his gaze dropped to his hands on the table. “I’m not going to lie and say I’ve never taken advantage of the sexual favors that have come my way. What I will say is that I gave up casual sex a long time ago because of what those encounters taught me.”
“What did they teach you?” she asked, feeling suddenly cold and wrapping her hands around her mug to steal away what she could of its warmth.
“That the best sex is had between the ears.” A tender smile crossed his face, and he looked back up. “Corny, but there you have it. I can scratch a physical itch myself. There’s no awkward after-sex hassle, and I don’t have to give myself instructions.”
