by James, Sandy
“I beg your pardon?”
“Free falling. Just going where the wind blows you, so to speak. Your problem is that you think too much. I mean, just look at you. You’re thinking right now, aren’t you? I’ll bet you’re trying to figure out a way to get some work done.”
He scowled at her which only confirmed her opinion.
“You need to turn your brain off sometimes,” she counseled. Ross cocked his head and looked at her like he thought she wasn’t making any sense. “You think too much.”
“How can a person think too much?” He ate another scoop of peanut butter, seemingly contemplating the concept.
“When all you do is worry and fret, you’re thinking too much. I’ll bet you toss and turn at least an hour before you fall asleep, worrying about what you still need to do, probably checking the clock every few minutes. Calculating how much time you have left to sleep. Sometimes you’ve got to let your brain go and just...live. Do something for hell of it.”
Ross appeared to have not a single clue as to what Laurie was trying to explain. He ate some more peanut butter.
“Let’s do something fun. Come on.” Laurie tossed her book on the coffee table. Standing up, she grabbed the peanut butter from his hand and pulled the spoon from his mouth. She dropped them both next to her book. Then she took both his hands in hers and tried to pull him off the couch. She might as well have been trying to lift an elephant. She tugged; he just smiled up at her. “A little help here.”
He shook his head and his grin reached his warm brown eyes. “You want me, you’ve got to work for it.”
Laurie didn’t want to read him anymore. She wanted to kick him in the shins. “Smart ass. I thought you were bored.”
Ross’s sigh lasted a good three seconds. “Fine.” He stood up and held out his hand.
Laurie took it and led him toward the stairs.
Ross wasn’t sure where she was heading, but a big part of him hoped it was toward a bedroom.
Chapter 5
Laurie dragged Ross right past the bedrooms to a small flight of steps leading up from the second floor. Casual sex wasn’t exactly his thing anyway, and he wondered why it had even crossed his mind in the first place. Perhaps going two years without a real relationship had finally caught up with him.
The steps led to another door which Laurie opened to reveal an enormous attic. “It’ll be warmer here than on the second floor.” She pointed at a solid brick wall. “That’s the chimney. The bricks stay warm whenever there’s a fire burning. I used to play up here all the time when I was little.”
“You live here? In this house?”
“Nah. This place is a family heirloom. We use it as a vacation house now. I live in Joliet. It’s near Chicago.”
“I know where Joliet is. I live on Lake Shore Drive.”
Ross looked around at the history contained in the room. A dressmaker’s dummy stood in the corner next to several framed paintings that were stacked and leaning against the wall. An old-fashioned steamer trunk brushed up against an antique wooden bureau. A rusty Red Flyer wagon full of Barbie dolls in various states of undress rested in another corner. A full-length oval mirror stood next to a wooden rack on which different generations of hats hung. Several pieces of furniture sported white sheets. Cobwebs hung from every rafter.
Laurie flitted about the attic, picking up discarded items. “Sorry it’s such a mess. My family never throws anything away.”
She had obviously misread the reason for his attention. Ross wasn’t put off by the attic. He was enthralled. The whole place seemed like an interactive museum.
More than a few cardboard boxes lay piled in the middle of the attic. A small wooden table with two chairs sat next to the boxes. Laurie walked around them to go over to the big trunk. “What are you doing?” Ross asked.
Before she could answer, Laurie knelt down to open the trunk and pulled out several pieces of obviously old clothing which she began to stack neatly on the floor.
“Ah ha!” she triumphantly announced as she pulled a box from the trunk. “Checkers.” She stood up and walked to the table where she disturbed a thick layer of dust as she dropped the box on its surface.
He rolled his eyes; she narrowed hers. “I’m going to smack you. You said you were bored.”
“Checkers is your idea of free falling?” he asked.
“Well, no, but—”
“Then what is?”
“What is what?”
“What’s your idea of free falling? What would you do if you had a couple of days to use however you wanted?” Ross was a bit surprised at how anxious he was to hear her answer.
Laurie seemed lost deep in thought for a moment. “I’d take a map, close my eyes, and point to a place. Wherever my finger landed, I’d go.”
Ross rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Interesting.”
Laurie opened the box, but he didn’t join her at the table. Instead, he moved to the clothes she’d piled on the floor. Ross picked up a coat and shook the dust from it. The very old suit jacket that had been hand stitched, and Ross was entirely enraptured. He took a few steps to stand in front of the mirror and held the jacket in front of him. “Who wore this?”
Laurie walked over, lifted a sleeve, and inspected the coat. “I don’t recognize it. Looks old.”
“I love clothes—especially old clothes,” he blurted out before scolding himself for sounding so much like some female.
“So do I. I used to play dress up with the stuff I found up here.” Laurie walked back over to the trunk. Reaching inside, she pulled out a long pink dress with pearl buttons running down the center of the bodice and lace bordering the wrists of its long sleeves. “This is my favorite. It’s really old, but it’s so beautiful. I used to tell Mama I’d wear it at my wedding, that I’d dance in it ‘til midnight just like Cinderella.” She walked over to the mirror to hold the dress in front of her as she stood next to Ross.
“You like to dance?”
She nodded enthusiastically, blue eyes sparkling. “Oh, yes. Mama let me take lessons at Arthur Murray when I was in junior high. I liked it so much, I took a class in ballroom dancing in college. There’s nothing more romantic.”
“Romance.” He blew a raspberry and then smiled, anticipating her reaction.
“Men.” She blew her own raspberry.
Ross considered his reflection. “I’m way too big for this coat,” he commented with a note of sadness. You sound like a girl, Ross. Clothes had always been his weakness. Now that he had so much money and very little else to spend it on, he indulged himself by having most of his suits tailor made. The jock in him had a difficult time getting past the idea of it appearing too feminine to worry about his clothing so much.
“I’m too big for the dress too. I must be more than half a foot taller than the woman who wore this. We must grow ‘em bigger nowadays.” Laurie swirled around in a circle, holding the pretty pink dress to her chest. She looked utterly enchanting. When she stopped and faced him, he had an overwhelming urge to take her in his arms and kiss her.
Damn, how he wanted to feel her in his embrace again now that he was awake enough to enjoy it. Unfortunately, he feared it would be too rude to reach out for her. Last night they had the excuse of the cold and their fatigue. Now, he figured it would be overstepping the boundaries to start pawing at her. But his vague memories of holding her soft body in his arms haunted him.
Laurie saw the emotions playing across his face but found herself at a loss as to how to interpret them. At that moment, she desperately wanted to be able to read him. It was frustrating and downright humbling to have to guess at what another person felt.
How did people live like this? It was akin to groping around in the dark. One more try. I’ll give it one more try.
Walking back to the trunk, she laid the dress over the other piled-up clothing. Then she took the few steps back to Ross and stared up into his eyes. The first thing she thought was that, although she might be a tall woman, it wo
uld put a crick her neck to look up at him all the time. The man was a skyscraper.
Ross turned to face her as he let the suit jacket fall to the dusty floor. The lecherous, hungry look he gave her made Laurie wonder if he wanted to kiss her just as badly as she wanted to kiss him. But she had something else on her mind.
She reached for his hands, pushed them up, and laced her fingers through his. Pressing her palms to his, she concentrated hard on his eyes. Their faces came close enough that when Laurie stood on tiptoes, their foreheads almost touched. Ross stared back at her and kept looking into her eyes as intensely as she stared into his.
Damn it! How she wanted to read this guy! Laurie couldn’t even imagine what the rest of her life would be like if she’d really lost her empathic gift. But even more frustrating was the fact that she felt pulled toward Ross with such intensity. Her intuition nudged at her, prodded her to accept him. When her mind and body started to will her to kiss him, Laurie knew she’d better try to regain control over her own emotions and stop trying to read his.
She forcefully pushed his hands away. Ross looked confused. Or pissed. Or...what? I can’t read him!
Laurie felt the need to distance herself for a moment and refocus her thoughts. Instead of reading Ross, all she had done was get the delightful little gasps and the stomach fluttering again. She wondered if she would always tingle every single time she touched him. Was it only him? It had to be. Other guys sure didn’t make her insides quiver. She didn’t remember the fluttering ever happening with Alex. She couldn’t possibly forget something that felt so good, so exciting, so downright intoxicating. While she had to admit it was horribly exhilarating Ross could elicit that type of response from her body, it was also much more frightening than she’d ever imagined.
Physical attraction was an entirely new thing. She’d learned early on the absolute necessity of keeping boys at arm’s length. While there had been infatuations and one semi-serious boyfriend, Laurie had never been in love and had never made love. She was too afraid to lose herself in passion—such an overpowering emotion. Especially if she wasn’t ever entirely sure the response belonged to her alone or was the guy’s desire for her seeping into her thoughts.
And there was always the money.
A goodly chunk of the Miller money would be hers one day, and many male gold-diggers couldn’t look past her wealth to see Laurie for herself. It didn’t seem to matter that she wouldn’t hold hands or even kiss on the first date, although she knew she’d earned a reputation for being cold and standoffish. At least her gift allowed her to quickly toss the fortune hunters out on their ears. Greed was a very easy emotion to read. Sometimes it was so obvious she didn’t even have to touch them. They stank of it.
Besides, Laurie could never entirely convince herself that someone could love her wholly for herself. No matter how physically active she stayed or how she watched her diet, she could never fit in anything smaller than a size fourteen. In her mind, she was too big—her height and weight made her feel less than desirable. Strike one and two. She’d also managed to convince herself that the peculiarity of her psychic gifts only made the prospects of a serious relationship even less likely. Strike three.
But she never felt self-pity over what might be missing in her personal life. Working with her patients showed Laurie the value she had to others. The only thing she knew she would miss was having a family. Somehow she would find a way to bear a child of her own, even if it meant resorting to something like artificial insemination.
That would really make her parents happy.
Now she felt utterly desolate and defenseless. The special ability she thought made her a great therapist seemed to have vanished. The man staring at her back had the ability to turn her mind into mush with a simple touch. He seemed sincerely attracted to her, but she’d have to read him to be sure. And what if he did like her but he managed to figure out she was really one of the rich “virtually worthless” people he hated so much?
And he was obviously still infatuated with another woman.
Laurie folded her arms over her breasts and stared out of the small octagon window, feeling terribly discouraged and horribly frustrated.
She sensed Ross standing behind her before he actually touched her. It was unnerving. As if it was the most natural thing in the world, he wrapped his arms around her, pulled her back against his chest, and rubbed his chin on her head.
There it was again. That flutter that seemed to spread with the speed of fire burning through dried kindling. Laurie didn’t move away. She didn’t take offense to his touch. And she didn’t want him to leave. Dropping her hands to cover his, she reveled in touching this man and keeping her own feelings. It was...wonderful.
“Laurie?”
“Hmm?”
“What were you doing? You know, with your hands?”
His curiosity had evidently gotten the better of him. She was amazed he’d been so patient with all of her attempts to read him. Had he groped at her as much as she’d fumbled around with him, she would have been furious. Merde. He probably thinks I’m easy.
“What do you think I was doing?” Laurie wasn’t ready to share her gift. After his teasing about being a therapist and a possible vegetarian, she figured Ross wasn’t really open to too many strange new things. If she told him she had empathic abilities with strong bursts of uncanny intuition, he’d probably think she was nuts.
“It’s still snowing,” he replied, staring out the little window.
She turned her head to look out at the blanket of white falling from the sky.
“It doesn’t bother me, you know. You can hold my hands anytime you want.” He rubbed his chin on her head again.
“I wasn’t... I didn’t mean to... I won’t grab you again, okay?” The nerve of the guy. He actually thought she was just trying to turn him on.
Then Laurie decided to be honest with herself. She touched him for a reason other than reading. She liked touching him, and she was discovering it was pure heaven to be able to lay a hand on someone without reading emotions. It was so enthralling she knew she needed to be careful. Twenty-nine year old women didn’t go around pawing at a guy like a horny teenager trying to get to first base on a Saturday night.
Ross hugged Laurie a little tighter, and she relaxed a little more. She thought he sniffed her hair, an endearing gesture that brought a timid smile to her lips. She was glad she’d used her apple-scented shampoo.
“So, what do we do now?” he finally asked.
Laurie was at a loss. She shrugged. The feelings flying through her were driving her crazy, and she hoped Ross wasn’t aware of the fact he could turn her insides into nothing more than a mixture of warm goo. Suddenly, it was all too much, too soon. She pushed her arms out to break the embrace and stepped out of the shelter she’d found in his arms.
Not wanting the moment to be too awkward, Laurie went back to the trunk and knelt down to put the clothes away. Ross walked over to her side.
“Let me help,” he said, picking up a red beaded dress. A book fell out of its folds and landed with a loud thud on the dusty floor. He reached for it and blew off the dust on its black leather cover. “Looks like a journal.”
She let out a small squeal, jumped to her feet, and immediately reached for it. “This is what Alex was—” Shut up, Laurie.
“Alex? The guy with the box?”
She didn’t answer.
“Alex was what?” Ross’s brows furrowed and eyes narrowed as his face grew hard. He looked downright jealous.
Laurie flicked her wrist. “Nothing. Just drop it.” She walked to the table, pulled out a chair, and began turning the pages of the book.
“Alex was what?” Standing there with his hands fisted on his hips, Ross appeared more than a little annoyed. “Look, Kitten, fair’s fair. I told you about Katie.”
She tried to change the subject. That tactic worked for him when she made him confront his stress level. “Kitten? Why do you keep calling me Kitten?”
She rolled her eyes. A cat. She reminded him of a cat. “Thanks a heap.”
“I loved that cat. Alex was what?”
Laurie sighed. The pit bull lawyer in him wasn’t going to let it drop. She didn’t like rehashing those still raw memories. “Alex came here doing research. He’d been looking for a journal. Practically tore this place apart. He was so pissed when he didn’t find it, he left without even taking all his stuff. Haven’t heard from him since. I can’t believe I just stumbled across it. I didn’t think about it being with the clothes. I figured it didn’t exist.”
“What kind of journal?”
“You know, I don’t know why I’m telling you anything when I don’t even know your last name.” Her scolding tone was more irritation at herself than at Ross. She should be guarding her words, not spilling her humiliating romantic history.
A good therapist never reveals her own feelings. She focuses on the patient’s instead.
But he’s not a patient, her heart whispered back. He’s just a guy snowbound in your ranch house.
Yes, he’s handsome. And yes, I can’t read him. So what?
You like the way he kisses, her heart responded. He reached something inside you.
“I don’t know your name, either,” Ross intruded into her wayward thoughts. “Whose turn is it? Mine or yours?”
“Beaulieu. My name’s Beaulieu,” Laurie blurted out. Remembering the nasty things he’d insinuated about wealthy people, she wasn’t quite ready to reveal that she was the person he sought. And she sure didn’t want to be severed from her work. Not yet.
Ross cocked his head, looking a bit bewildered. “What?”
“You asked my name. My last name’s Beaulieu. I’m Laurie Beaulieu.”
He glared at her as if he didn’t believe her. Lawyers. They didn’t trust anybody. She didn’t want to think about the fact that she was lying. That kind of admission made her too uncomfortable.
