The Black Sheep

by Patricia Ryan

  “I’m a Democrat, but a fiscal conservative.”

  He blinked. “Hunh.”

  “Fiscal, not social. It’s about the economy.”

  “I know, it’s just that I’ve never lusted after any kind of conservative before. Not knowingly, anyway.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go change for my swim.”

  Exasperation clouded his features. “Harley... damn it. All right. All right. You can swim.”

  “Thanks for the permission, boss. I’ll never forget this.”

  “But only with me there.”

  She swept past him, heading upstairs to change. “Are you gonna swim, too?”

  “Not a chance. I’ll act as lifeguard. I’m very good at mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Want a demonstration?”

  “Not a chance,” she echoed over her shoulder, grinning.

  “Can’t fault me for trying,” he mumbled.

  TUCKER RECLINED in the dark on a chaise longue, drawing slowly on his cigarette as he watched Harley’s sleek form glide toward him beneath the water, brightly lit by underwater pool lamps. When she reached a point about ten feet from the end of the pool, she surfaced, skimming both hands back from her hairline to smooth down the slick tresses.

  Tonight her swimsuit was a wisp of burgundy Lycra that clung to her as if it had been painted on. It was cut low front and back, and the whole thing was held up—rather tenuously, he thought—by spaghetti straps tied in bows on her shoulders. Suits like that were designed with bodies like hers in mind, he decided. He watched, mesmerized, as, head back and eyes closed, she twisted her hair to wring the pool water out of it.

  Some might think her boyish, with her small breasts and slim hips. Tucker thought her anything but. Yes, she was strong and athletic, and no, she would never win any Dolly Parton look-alike contests. But she was incredibly nubile and, to his way of thinking, intensely female.

  She stood waist-deep in the water and looked at him, and her pure, unadorned beauty took his breath away. The water’s phosphorescent glow reflected onto her in quivering waves of light. With her gold-green eyes and sleek bronze hair, she looked like a virgin goddess emerging from the sea at midnight.

  “Join me,” she said.

  Her words inspired an instant physical reaction in him that took him completely by surprise. Words—such innocent words, at any rate—had never done that to him before. To cover his speechlessness, he drew on the cigarette again, then tapped it into the jar lid he held in his other hand.

  He cleared his throat. ‘‘Haven’t we already had this conversation?”

  She took a couple of slow-motion steps toward him in the water. “Come on. Let me see if you can swim a lap.”

  “Look, Harley, I’ll save us both a lot of effort. I can’t swim a lap. End of story.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t tried.”

  He stabbed the cigarette into the lid. “Trust me, I know what my body’s capable of.”

  “You don’t have a clue what your body’s capable of if you haven’t even tried. I’d have a lot more respect for you if you tried and failed than if you didn’t even give it a shot. That’s like giving up without a fight.”

  He chuckled. “No offense, but that’s a pretty lame excuse for inspiration. Your friend Eve what’s-her-name had the right idea. What did she tell them? ‘Catch me and you can have me?’ That’s motivation.”

  “Would that work with you?”

  He met her eyes and smiled. “Try it and see.”

  There was a pause. She looked down at the bright water for a moment, and then she looked up and said, “All right. Catch me and you can have me.”

  He studied her eyes, trying to read her intent. “You’re not serious.”

  Her eyebrows drew together. “I’m always serious. And I always do—”

  “—what you say you’re going to do,” he finished. “Yeah, but... I know. You’ve got some loophole, some way of getting out of it if I catch you. That’s exactly the kind of thing they teach you in business school.”

  “No loophole,” she said. “Catch me and you can have me.”

  “‘Have me,’ meaning...”

  “Have me for the night.”

  “For the purpose of...”

  “For any purpose you want, although I’ve got a pretty good idea what that purpose will be. Even virgins aren’t that dense.”

  He said, “Yeah, now that you mention that, are you sure you want to make deals like this, given your... lack of experience?”

  “If it doesn’t bother you, it doesn’t bother me.”

  “Why would it bother me? Down through history, men have paid top dollar for virgins. And here I’ll be getting one for the price of a lap.”

  “First of all, virgins might have been some big prize once upon a time, but take it from me, they’re no longer in such hot demand.”

  He allowed himself a slow smile. “Call me old-fashioned.”

  “Second, what makes you think you’ll be getting me at all? By your own admission, you can’t even swim a lap.”

  “Ah.”

  “Ah,” she mocked.

  He sat up and used his cane to help him stand. “Yeah, but like you said, how do I really know if I haven’t tried?” He dropped the cane onto the chaise and whipped his T-shirt over his head. Tossing the shirt aside, he ran his hands through his hair, noting with amusement Harley’s nonplussed expression. “So how does this work?”

  “‘This’? Oh, uh... why don’t we just do it the way Eve did with her vets? You start at the shallow end, against the wall. I start at the drop-off to the deep end. When I say, ‘Go,’ we swim one lap. If you catch me before I touch the deck at the deep end... well, then—” she shrugged and spread her arms in offering “—one virginity, yours for the taking.”

  “Freestyle okay with you?”

  “Whatever stroke suits your fancy.”

  “Mmm-hmm.” He squatted at the edge of the pool. “You’ll have a pretty big lead on me.”

  “You get to push off the wall.” she told him. “You’ll make up most of it that way.”

  He grimaced, trying to picture using his bad leg to push off the wall. “Right.” Stepping out of his moccasins, he sat at the edge of the pool and lowered himself into the water. It was cold but not too bad. His baggy shorts were instantly waterlogged; they would weigh him down. He started undoing the fly. “Mind if I lose these?”

  She glared at him. “Yes!”

  He held up a placating hand as he rezipped with the other. “Just wanted to see you angry. For inspiration.”

  Who was he kidding, doing this? His trophy days were long past. Harley could swim circles around him. He honestly didn’t know what he’d been thinking of, agreeing to this. It would be an exercise in humiliation.

  “Ready?” Harley had moved to the drop-off, and stood facing him. He sighed and nodded.

  She turned around. “One...”

  He braced his good leg against the wall.

  “Two...” She positioned her arms. Shaking his head, he did the same.

  “Three...” She glanced back at him. As soon as he saw her face, he knew, hopeless or not, that he had to give it his all. He had to try. He had to have her. Against his better judgment, he braced his bad leg next to the good one for extra power in the push-off.

  “Go!”

  Her feet sprang up behind her and she flutter-kicked forward as Tucker pushed away from the wall. In his competition days, he’d shoot a good third of the length of the pool before he had to start stroking. This time, he made it just a few yards.

  The pain—in his chest as well as his leg—began the moment he left the wall. He willed it from his conscious thought, as he had trained himself to do, but it wasn’t easy. Every stroke, every kick, renewed it. His form was abominable, not only because of the pain, but because critical muscle groups in his left leg and chest were all but useless. Almost immediately he knew that there was no way he could pos
sibly catch her. Lifting his head to take a breath, he saw her, reaching out to touch the deck at the deep end. He had only just entered the deep end.

  Disgusted, he came to a stop and trod water, but that hurt almost as much as swimming. When she looked over her shoulder at him, he turned away and glided to the side of the pool. He held on to the deck and realized he was slightly winded, despite the brevity of the swim. He never used to get winded when he swam as a teenager. But he never used to smoke back then, either, except for the occasional Marlboro he and Phil would sneak from his dad.

  Would he even be able to push himself up onto the deck, or would he have to use the steps? “Fuck me,” he growled.

  She said, “You made it halfway. That’s not bad.”

  “How much of you do I get for halfway?”

  “Well, none.”

  “Then it is bad.”

  He decided he had rested his body enough to try to get out of the pool. Pushing with both arms against the deck and grunting with the effort, he made it in one try, to his immense relief. Sitting on the deck, he felt something in his back pocket, groaned, pulled out his wallet, and shook its sodden contents out onto the concrete. His money, snapshots, licenses, and business cards were completely soaked and would have to be spread out somewhere to dry, or else discarded. Ironically, the only unaffected items were the ones he had the least use for: the two little square packets labeled Trojan. He noticed Harley’s gaze linger on the condoms for a moment and then flick away. He stuffed everything back into the wallet, replaced it in his pocket, and leaned over to massage the aching muscles of his left leg.

  “Are you in pain?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “I didn’t want this to hurt you,” she said, her voice small. “Or depress you. I just wanted to inspire you. Maybe I’m just not as inspirational as Eve Markham—”

  “Oh, honey...” A tendril of hair hung across her eyes, and he leaned over to tuck it behind her ear. “You are very inspirational. Trust me, my effort was heroic, even if the results weren’t.”

  She propelled herself out of the water with fluid ease and sat next to him. After a few moments of silence, she wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees and said, “Maybe you’ll have better luck tomorrow.”

  She was staring off toward the diving board. He strained to meet her eyes, then finally just took her by the chin and turned her head to face him. “Tomorrow? You want to do this again tomorrow?”

  “Sure. This is supposed to be physical therapy for you. That’s not just a one-shot deal, you know that. Improvement takes time. I figured we could do this every day, during my evening swim.”

  He searched her eyes. He was certain that she had originally intended this as a one-time-only challenge. “Why are you doing this? Really.”

  She seemed to be choosing her words carefully. “I want you to get better. Really. I like you. You’ve been good to me. You took care of me yesterday when I was sick. Let’s just say I’m paying you back.”

  “Yeah, but aren’t you concerned that I’ll catch you and you’ll have to pay up? Are you really willing to go that far in the interests of my rehabilitation?”

  “Maybe I’m just dead sure you’ll never catch me,” she said smugly.

  “Maybe you’re dead wrong.”

  “Maybe I am. But don’t worry. I know a deal’s a deal. If I lose, I’ll pay up.”

  “Do you really consider it losing?” He leaned toward her and murmured into her ear, “Who knows? You may like it.” He took her chin again and turned her face toward his, but just as his lips brushed hers, she abruptly turned away.

  “Don’t bet on it.”

  He paused. “Hey, I may be out of practice, but I still know how to—”

  “I’m not talking about you,” she said, without looking at him. “I’m talking about me. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up, thinking it’s going to be... I don’t know, some kind of night of unbridled passion. I don’t think I’m very... responsive.”

  He rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know you’re inexperienced.”

  She shook her head. “I mean, I don’t think I can...” She sighed. “I had this boyfriend in college, Brian. He was always trying to get me to... you know....”

  “I can take an educated guess.”

  “But I just never wanted to, and he said I was, that I was probably... that I couldn’t—”

  “He said you were frigid?” She nodded. “Oh, honey, that word should be stricken from every dictionary in existence. There is no such thing. Just men who don’t know what they’re doing.” He leaned toward her, kissed her throat, and said, “I’m not one of them.”

  “I don’t know. Brian said—”

  “Brian’s an asshole.”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “Sure, he is. He let you get away, didn’t he?”

  A satisfied little smile slipped past her defenses. “Who said you weren’t smooth?” She rose to her feet and he struggled to his, waving away her attempt to help him up. “I’ll go get your cane,” she said.

  He draped an arm over her shoulder. “I can just use you. If you don’t mind.” After a brief hesitation, she circled an arm around his waist. The spaghetti straps of her suit were tied in single-knotted bows, not double as he would have expected. As they walked, he imagined taking one end of each bow and pulling. In his mind’s eye the suit peeled down like the skin of a fruit.

  When they got to the chaise longue, she extended her hand. “So I take it we have a deal?”

  He took her hand and drew her toward him, encircling her with his arms and leaning down to take her mouth with his.

  He kissed her with unthinking passion, tasting her ripe lips, probing between them until his tongue met hers.

  After a brief hesitation, she returned the kiss, wrapping her arms around him and molding herself against him, her soft breasts crushed to his chest, her hips pressed to his. She was so warm and wet and sleek, she felt like no woman he had ever held. His hands traced hungry paths over her back, sliding down to cup her small, round bottom, pressing her toward him. Her nipples stiffened against his chest, and his body stirred in response. She felt it and broke the kiss, gasping, “Tucker...”

  She tried to pull back, but he held her tight, murmuring hoarse words into her ear. “Forget the deal. Make love to me. Now.” He tried to claim her mouth again, but she turned aside and pushed away from him. He let up on his grip and they stood for a few breathless moments in a loose embrace.

  “It’s best my way,” she breathed. “It has to be my way or not at all. That’s my only offer.”

  He emptied his lungs in a ragged sigh. “Wow, you drive a hard bargain.”

  She held her hand out. “Is it a deal?”

  He wrapped his big hand around her small one and shook. “Deal.”

  HARLEY LOOKED UP from her book when she heard the telltale creaking stair. That sound was soon followed by others—the thump of the cane, the muffled footsteps in the hall outside her bedroom door.

  Again? They had made their deal just that evening. Was he already tired of waiting?

  But no, the footsteps passed her door and continued on down the hall. She heard another door open and close; its characteristic squeak told her it was the door to R.H.’s suite. What did he want in there?

  After a few minutes of hearing nothing more, she settled back against her pillows, wondering what had possessed her to actually go ahead and make such a deal. Was it as simple as what she had told Tucker, that she wanted to inspire him to rehabilitate himself? Certainly she did want that, but she knew that she had also shocked the hell out of him, which was rather satisfying after all his comments about how uptight she was. On reflection, though, the most important purpose of the deal was to ensure that their relationship remained platonic. She couldn’t trust Tucker to draw that line, but neither could she trust herself. When he kissed her, she knew that she could give herself to this man, heart, soul, and body, despite her many misgivings about lif
e-styles, values, goals, and dreams. And what then? He would bolt. Probably immediately, and probably without saying goodbye. And she didn’t think she could bear that.

  Hence the value of the deal. They both respected it; they would both abide by it. And, of course, he would never catch her. In September, when his father came home, he would leave, and she would probably never see him again. Because she cared for him, she would miss him. But missing him was better than hating him.

  She closed her eyes and took some deep breaths to clear her thoughts, then opened her book and continued reading. This was a much more absorbing book than Priorities for the Successful Manager, and she found she didn’t want to put it down and go to sleep. About an hour passed by, and then she heard the footsteps again. This time they did stop outside her door, and then came the two soft knocks.

  Again she looked down at herself. Tonight an oversize T-shirt served as her sleepwear. She adjusted it so that it covered her leopard-print panties, but stopped short at pulling up the sheet, remembering that he had, after all, seen her naked. How coy did she really need to be?

  “Come in.”

  He didn’t hesitate in the doorway this time, but walked right up to her and tilted his head to try to read the title of her book, which she immediately covered with her hand. “What is it tonight? How to Make Enough Money to Pay for Your Therapy?” He reached for the book and she held it away from him, but he snatched it out of her hand, laughing delightedly when he found out what it was. “The Kama Sutra! I told you you’d like it!”

  He handed it back to her and she took it, feeling the warm blush crawl up her throat and over her face. “You’re in a good mood,” she said.

  “Endorphins,” he explained, sitting on the edge of the bed. “I’ve been working out in the gym.”

  “Ah!” That explained his appearance. He wore a gray T-shirt soaked through with sweat, navy gym shorts, and old running shoes. Strands of wet hair hung over his forehead, and he raked them back with his fingers.

  He said, “The only way I’m ever going to make good time in the pool again is to develop the muscles that have deteriorated since the crash. Mainly my left pec and left quad. So I’ve tailored my workout for plenty of work in those areas—lots of leg extensions and leg presses, cross flies, bench presses.... You don’t mind spotting me on the bench press tomorrow, do you? We can work out together. You spot me, I’ll spot you.”