Jack arrived close on her heels. Liz had barely had time to sweep a jumble of clothes and candles under her bed and dash down to the living room when she heard him knock and then try the handle of the front door. She ran to open it.
"Glad to see you're locking up at last," he said with a protective smile that made her heart wobble like a top.
She thought of the night she was burglarized, the night he climbed over the barbed wire. It's true, she realized. We really have been through a lot together. It's not as though I've just picked the man up in a bar.
"You bet I'm locking up," she admitted. "Grant Dade's going to have to break the door down next time."
Jack shot her an amused look and said, "Still haven't given up on that graduate student?" Without waiting for her answer, he added, "In the kitchen, or out here?"
Liz had no idea why, but she assumed he was asking her where they were going to make love. "Oh — well ... I hadn't considered .... On the floor?"
"Hey, whatever turns you on," he said amiably. He plopped the heavy bag of food on the seaman's trunk in front of the chintz sofa and then sat down on the rug and began taking out the paper cartons. "Hope you like Szechuan."
He meant where to eat.
Clearly, Liz had sex on the brain. Embarrassed to be so gung-ho when he was not, she said, "Why don't we just sit at the kitchen table?"
He looked up with a relieved grin and said, "Thank God. My knees are killing me down here."
The phone rang as they were relocating to the kitchen. Susy was calling, with her grandparents' help, from the motel where the three of them had set up camp. Susy, thrilled and exhausted from the first day of her adventure, was too tired to sleep, too tired to talk. It was an unsatisfying conversation, made worse by the fact that the two of them weren't used to talking about Important Matters without laps and hugs. Still, Susy was happy and secure in her grandparents' care and just homesick enough to satisfy Liz.
"Is she getting plenty of boat rides?" asked Jack when Liz hung up.
"You bet. She's been through the Pirates of the Caribbean; on the jungle cruise; on the ferry to Tom Sawyer's Island. Tomorrow comes something called Mike Fink's Keelboats," Liz said, smiling.
"Sounds promising," Jack said. "Come and sit."
Jack had arranged the half-dozen white cartons on the table like a small village of food and had set out plates and silverware. He took a pencil and pad from her desk and tossed them on the table, then popped the tabs on the two cans of Budweiser he'd hunted down in the back of the fridge.
"Okay," he announced cheerfully. "First, food. Then work."
Then sex? she wondered. Was she the only one wondering it? How could he be this way — so casual, when nothing about their relationship was casual? Could he honestly have forgotten about their fight?
"Before we go any further, I want to apologize for the way I stalked out of your house," she said briskly. "I overreacted."
He was midsip in his beer. Putting the can down carefully, he said, "No, Liz, you didn't overreact. You behaved with a lot more dignity than I would have done. I'm the one who owes the apology," he said, coloring, "which is why I came looking for you. To say how sorry I am. I was — truly — an ass."
"Apology accepted," Liz said simply. His words sounded sweet in her ear; it occurred to her that neither her father nor her ex-husband had ever said them. She smiled to herself, thinking, It's nice when a man can admit he's an ass.
He misunderstood her smile. Laying his hand on her wrist for emphasis, he said softly, "I mean it. I had no right to trivialize what you do for a living. In the first place, it's not trivial: look at today, in the shelter. And in the second place, who am I to criticize?" he said ironically. "I launch rich men's toys for a living."
"You know that's not all you —" Liz stopped herself. "You're right," she said with a good-natured laugh. "Neither one of us is ever gonna be President of the United States. Let's eat."
The air had cleared; suddenly it seemed easier to breathe. Liz put aside her will-we, won't-we agony and concentrated on the food and the fund-raiser. They attacked the meal with gusto and began throwing ideas back and forth with abandon.
"Okay," Jack started out by saying. "First question: How much of your time will an event take?"
"A biggish one? Half my time for the next three months."
"Too much time. We'll scale down. What are some minimum-manpower events?"
"Who do we want to attract? An older crowd brings money; a younger crowd brings enthusiasm for the cause."
"Anne's Place needs both. What've you got? Talk to me, talk to me," he said comically, stabbing his Lo Mein.
"A dinner dance is one way to go. We'd need two bands for wide appeal, though: swing and rock."
"Nah. What about a walkathon? I see those all the time."
"Overdone. Wow. This Kung Bo Chicken's great. We could do an auction. No — no time for that."
"What if I produced a celebrity? Schwarzenegger likes Newport."
She was impressed. "You know Arnold?"
Jack smiled. "I know he likes Newport, is what I actually know. But say, someone like him."
She thought about it, then put the thought aside. "I don't have the experience to handle a celebrity event," she admitted ruefully.
"Beach party? Amplified music, big barbecue?" he suggested.
She cringed. "Just what the locals need — someone stealing their beach and playing loud music as they do it. You want to be run out of town on a rail?"
She stole a spicy shrimp from his plate, bit into it, started choking, and washed down the fire with beer. "Ha-a-hht," she said, gasping, as the tears flowed freely.
"Serves you right," he said with satisfaction. "This sounds a little decadent, but I've heard of something called Cow Pie Bingo. What you do is mark off a field into squares, then 'sell' each square for, say, twenty bucks. Then you let an overfed cow wander around, and where she drops her—"
"Yeah, yeah, I read about that," she said, laughing through her tears. "Did you know a ministry in Canada refused to grant some charity a lottery license to do it because they thought the cow could be influenced into where to drop her — droppings? In any case, it's gambling. Besides, we don't have a cow."
"There's always Snowball," he said helpfully.
The infamous Snowball incident sent them into a round of comfortable laughter, and she thought, He's so easy to get along with. I am having such a good time here. I'd love to make it last.
"That's the trouble with Newport," Liz said at last. "It's such a great place to stage a charitable event. We've got mansions, historic homes, gardens, galleries, restaurants, beaches, an ocean, a bay, superb architecture, an international reputation." She sighed in frustration and said, "We photograph well, dammit. Everything's been done here."
"Garden tour?"
"Done."
"Cruise party?"
"Done."
"Food festival? Dine-around? Cook-off'?"
"Done, done, done."
"Jumble? White elephant sale?"
"Not enough money. Look, Jack, maybe we should just make this a friend-raiser instead of a fund-raiser. We'll make sure everyone learns about Anne's Place, what it does, how important it is to the community. Then next year—"
"No," Jack said. "I want the money for them this year. I know you think I'm a Jack-come-lately to this. But something about the women there touched me in a — well — a really profound way," he said, almost embarrassed about it. "I want to do this. That's all."
"Sure," said Liz softly. "It's just a question of finding the right fit. Let me think."
She avoided the hot food and picked at the Moo Shu veggies, mulling her options. Jack respected her frown of concentration and busied himself with his Peking ribs. The silence went on for a while; but it was a comfortable, easy silence.
"Costume party," Liz said at last. "We'll have a costume party. It cuts across all age groups and income levels. It lets old people feel young and young people feel ol
d. If someone doesn't have the money to rent an expensive costume, he can use imagination to design a clever one."
"Sounds good to me," Jack said, his blue eyes alight with appreciation. "Will it have a theme?"
She had an inspiration. "How about 'From the Gilded Age to the New Age'?" she suggested, stealing shamelessly from Grant Dade's doctoral thesis."
"Fine. We're talking about a costume ball, right?"
Liz wrinkled her nose and said, "Too expensive. I don't know what the entertainment will be. But it'll be cheap. We want maximum bang for our buck."
The glitter in Jack's eyes faded. "I don't want this to look like some Spartan affair," he said diplomatically.
"I suppose you mean thrown together," Liz said, trying to decide whether to be offended. With a dangerous smile, she asked, "Have I failed to meet your high standards so far?"
"Obviously not," he said, retreating. "But we want real money to come to this thing. Are you sure we don't want a ball?" he asked, almost plaintively. "At least I know about balls."
"Mis-ter Eastman. This will not be an extravaganza. This will not be some private bash for you and your pals. This is going to be a cost-effective event. You can stack the honorary committee with every socialite you know. But I absolutely, positively have to have the final say on everything. Are we agreed or not?"
"Agreed," Jack said, disarming her with a smile. Then, resting on his forearms, he leaned toward her and said, "Kiss me."
"Kiss you!" She laughed uncertainly and looked away. "Why should I kiss you?"
"Because somehow I feel like a frog," he said with a rueful smile in his voice. "If you kiss me, I'm hoping I turn into your prince."
She shook her head at his antic. If only you knew, she thought.
When she turned back to him, he was still smiling: a sexy, beguiling, depressingly confident smile. It was in his genes — handed straight down, with the rest of his good looks and charm, from his womanizing father. The only difference between the two men was that Jack Eastman had too much integrity to marry some woman and then put her through hell.
I know this, and I love him anyway. Dammit, dammit, dammit. I love him anyway.
She sighed in distress — as if she were truly going to kiss some ugly toad — and leaned her face toward his for the kiss. Stupid woman, she told herself as she did it. He's not a prince. He's not even a frog.
He's a bachelor.
Chapter 16
She brushed her lips dutifully against his, then began to pull away.
"Hold it," Jack said in protest, slipping his hand behind her head. "That's not enough to break the spell." He pulled her back for another kiss.
This one was longer, warmer, deeper. His voice was rich and insinuating as he said, "Hmm... I think ... I do feel ... a change coming on."
"Don't," she said, shying away. "Don't make fun of enchantments."
That surprised him. His breath came in a soft, laughing exhale. "Don't tell me you're going to change into a frog after this!"
"Jack — don't tease," she begged. She was thinking of last night, of the apparition. She was remembering the intense, unforgettable expression on Christopher Eastman's face.
Why couldn't Jack look at her that way?
"Madame, forgive me," Jack said in a tone that was only slightly more serious than before. "I've never had to deal with a real princess before."
She stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?" He gave her a lopsided smile and said candidly, "It means I feel totally inadequate around you. I can't seem to strike the right note."
The right note. The right note was the sound of a chime.
"I guess idle banter makes me nervous," she said.
"Idle banter! Is that what this is? I thought it was your idea of foreplay."
"Foreplay!" she said, astonished. "This is what makes all those socialites fall at your feet? I don't believe it!"
"I give up!" Jack let out a frustrated laugh and pushed his chair away from the table. He stood over her, angry and bemused at the same time, and rubbed the back of his neck in frustration. "You're so god-blessed ... prickly. It's like trying to grab hold of a porcupine."
"Is that so?" she said coolly, looking up at him. "So much for the princess, then. Is there a fairy tale that covers frogs and porcupines?"
"Yeah," he said, a dangerous glitter in his deep blue eyes. He took her by the wrists and pulled her up out of her chair. "The story goes like this: the pretty little porcupine is real stuck-up, even though it's the frog who has the big house on the shore. One day the frog is singing his heart out for the porcupine — he's wildly attracted to her because she's different from all the frogs he's known — and what does the porcupine do?
He dropped his voice to an ominous whisper. "She shoots one of her quills right through his voice box. Because automatically she sees him as an enemy. She doesn't understand his song. She doesn't even try."
They were standing a breath apart in the shadows of a golden dusk that beamed through the kitchen windows. Liz dropped her own voice to a whisper. "What happens to the frog? Does he — you know — croak?"
"Not anymore," Jack said, smiling at her pun.
She let herself be seduced by his whimsical humor. "How does the story end, then?" she asked.
"How do you think?" said Jack, holding her by her shoulders, taking small, nibbling tastes of her mouth. "The porcupine takes the frog home, sticks him in her bed, and makes him her sex-slave."
"The Brothers Grimm say that?"
"Well, words to that effect."
"Jack—"
"Let me make love to you," he said suddenly. "Please let me make love to you. I've asked you every way I know how. My God, Elizabeth. I feel like I've been thrown back into the Victorian age. I feel like your father's in the next room, shotgun on the wall. This is weird ... this shouldn't have to be so hard—"
He cut off a groan deep in his throat and said, "Ah, the hell with it," and yanked her against his chest, trapping her hands flat against him and covering her mouth with his in a hard, frustrated kiss. Liz opened her mouth to say something, to protest or to agree, she never did know which, and he thrust his tongue into it, filling it, beating back her words, beating back her thoughts.
He kissed her until she was breathless, until her ears rang and she had to jerk her mouth away, gasping for breath. His hands slid down the length of her back, coming to rest under the curve of her buttocks. Pressing her close, he held her fast against him, making her feel the heat. He kissed her again, holding her fast, making her want him, making her love him despite all her pointless resolve not to.
She pulled away in a last-ditch effort to avoid the agony that she knew lay ahead if she went on with this. To love him and not have it returned...
Panting, she said, "No; don't you see? I—"
She raised her gaze to his. If she looked him in the eye and told him that she loved him, the affair would end right then, right there; no one feared commitment more than a bachelor.
His look was dark and burning, a mirror of her own hunger as he began to interrupt, then wisely bit off the words. He waited.
In that fraction of a second Liz reversed herself completely. "Oh, dammit, Jack — yes," she said in a small, helpless wail. She slid her arms around his broad back and lifted her mouth, wet and swollen, to his. "I do want you — more than anyone."
It was so much less scary than admitting she loved him and risking his walking away.
He looked more relieved than triumphant as he lowered his mouth to hers in a perfect caress that moved her nearly to tears. His kiss turned into a sliding nuzzle at the curve of her neck. His voice was low, almost puzzled, as he said, "I feel as if I've wanted you all my life ... and yet ... where have you been, all my life?"
She arched her neck in offering, relishing the warmth of his lips on her skin, and said, "Right across the tracks; funny you never noticed."
That brought a low warning chuckle from him. "Nay, madame, I beg of you: put down your arms this once."<
br />
He was right, of course. She was being a porcupine again. On an impulse, she raised her hands high above her head. "How about if I put my arms ... up ... instead?" she asked innocently.
He lifted his head. A slow, knowing smile played on his face, a smile that brought high, rich color to Liz's cheekbones. "Boldness becomes you," he said, impressed. He took the hem of her cotton top in his hands and slid it as high as her bra. "Especially considering there are no curtains on those windows."
"Oh!" Down came her arms, down came the shirt.
He laughed softly, then slipped one arm around her waist and said, "Come, fair porcupine. Bedrooms were made for times like these."
They began going upstairs. He was handling her with just the right mix of pressure and tenderness. She felt like a skittish colt. Or worse: a virgin.
She wanted to ask, "Is anyone nervous besides me?" But he'd say no, and then she'd feel more nervous than ever.
What if she didn't meet his standards in bed? God knew, they must be high. What if Victoria was right — what if everything down there was closing up? What if — oh, God — people in his set made love altogether differently? Maybe they had some secret, illogical way of doing it — like the way they insisted on wearing long-sleeved shirts to weddings in August.
They were hand in hand at the bedroom door. Jack said, "You seem edgy."
"No kidding." Her voice was grim.
Turning to her, he cradled her cheeks in his hands, then slid his hands through the silkiness of her hair. "I want you to know — before we go in there — that this is different," he murmured. "Before, the bedroom has always been the end of the line. But with you ... I don't know. It's someplace where maybe we can hide, while we figure it all out."
She put her fingers to Jack's lips to silence him and said, "No promises necessary. I'm not fragile. I won't break."
Time After Time Page 23
