Forsaking All Others

  “That’s the kind of stuff I photograph and paint,” he whispered.

  The cardinal flitted away at the sound of his voice. Allison watched it flash through the trees. Suddenly she felt curiously refreshed and renewed. She turned in a circle, gazing at the white-rimmed branches overhead. “It’s hard to believe we’re in the heart of the city.”

  “Haven’t you ever been here before?” He still faced away from her, and she looked up at blond hair curling over his upturned collar, then scanned the peaceful woods again.

  “No. Not up here. I’ve been through the park, but I never bothered to come up here and see what was at the end of the trail.”

  He stood in silence, studying the sky, his head tipped sharply back. After a long time he said, “It’s peaceful, isn’t it?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Even the birds had stopped twittering. She realized she could actually hear Rick Lang’s breathing. They fell silent again, two people whose busy lives afforded too little of such elemental joys as this. There came a faint popping, as if bark were stretching in its sleep, growing restless for spring.

  “This is what I miss about not living where I was born and raised.”

  “Are you a country boy?”

  “Yup.” Suddenly he seemed to grow aware of how long they’d been standing motionless, knee-deep in snow. “Your feet must be frozen.”

  “It’s worth it,” she replied, and found it true.

  “Better get you back though, and steal that log if we’re going to.”

  “I guess.” Still, she was reluctant to return to the highway, to the sound of cars that was totally absent here, to the road signs instead of boles and branches.

  “Can you even feel your feet anymore?”

  Grinning, she looked down, then back up at him. His face was almost obscured by oncoming dark. “What feet?”

  He laughed. “Just a minute, stay where you are,” he ordered, then jogged off the path, circled around her, hunched over, and said, “Climb on.”

  “What!”

  “Climb on.” His butt pointed her way. “I got you into this mess, I’ll get you out.”

  “Won’t do you a bit of good. They’re gone. The feet are gone. Can’t feel a thing down there,” she said woefully, staring at her hidden calves.

  “Get the hell on, you’re making me feel guiltier by the minute.”

  “Oh, lord, if I do, you’ll be the one with the slipped disc.”

  “From a willow whip like you? Don’t make me laugh.”

  So she clambered aboard Rick Lang’s back, and he clamped a strong arm around each leg. She found herself with her cheek pressed against the back of his jacket, gloved hands clasped around his neck as she rode piggyback to the parking lot. Childish, foolish . . . fun, she thought.

  He smelled of cold air and slightly of something scented, like soap or shaving lotion. Bumping along, she tried to think back to how she had managed to end up in such a spot. She could scarcely remember. Only that it had been painless, fun, and that somehow he’d managed to make her laugh again.

  At the van she slipped off him and they loaded the log without mishap, but by that time Allison was shivering like a wet pup.

  “Do you want me to drive back?” Rick asked. “You could stick your feet up underneath the heater and start thawing out.”

  “No, they’re too cold. If I thaw them out that fast I’ll lose ’em for sure.”

  “Minnesota girls!” he exclaimed in disgust. “Never know how to dress for the weather, even though they’re born and raised in it.”

  “How do you know I was born and raised in it?”

  “Were you?”

  “Nope, South Dakota.”

  “Hey, you wanna talk all night or get back to town so you can thaw out?”

  When they were halfway back to the city, the headlights picking the way through the dark, she asked, “Are you always this way?”

  “What way?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know . . . amusing.”

  She felt his eyes scan her for a moment before he turned away and answered, “When I’m happy.”

  Memories of Jason came flooding back, warning her again of how sweet words such as these had hurt her once before, led her into a trap that had been sprung with such suddenness that she hadn’t yet healed. This man was too new, too irresistible, too perfect. She was reacting to the loss of Jason, spinning Rick into a fanciful hero of her liking.

  They parked the van on the nearly deserted downtown street and unloaded the log. Carrying it down the hall of the Genesis Building, they met the night watchman. As congenially and off the cuff as if the enormous log were only a toothpick he’d been picking his teeth with, Rick nodded to the curious old man, asked, “Hey, how’s it going?” and marched on past without so much as a snicker.

  After they’d gotten into the ancient elevator and propped the ungainly log in the corner, between them, they turned around to see the gates closing on the night watchman’s suspicious face.

  Allison and Rick looked at each other and crumpled against the sides of the elevator in laughter.

  “He’s probably still standing there with his tonsils showing,” she managed at last.

  “This is probably the most intrigue he’s had since he got the job. We’ll keep him wondering for months what we did with a log this size on the sixth floor of a downtown office building.”

  They were still in stitches as they lugged the clunky log down the hall and into the studio, stumbling under its weight, which was far more appreciable the farther they went. When they’d deposited it inside, near the sandbags, Rick dropped down heavily on it, puffing.

  “When I took this modeling job, I had no idea what else it would entail.”

  “Listen . . . thanks. I realize now I’d never have been able to do it alone.”

  “Any time.”

  The room grew quiet. Somewhere in the hall the elevator reverberated as it moved in the silent building.

  “Probably the night watchman coming up to see what those two crazy people are up to,” suggested Rick.

  “I’ll explain to him someday.”

  Rick clamped his hands to his knees and lunged to his feet.

  “Well, I’ve got an appointment on a log with Vivien Zucchini Thursday night. I’d better get home and get my beauty rest.”

  Allison led the way to the door, switched out the lights, locked up, and walked with Rick to the elevator. The night watchman was standing there again, studying them with a curious look on his face.

  As the cage was cutting him off from view, Rick waved two fingers at him. “G’night.”

  Unable to resist, Allison did the same.

  “He has the master key. How much you wanna bet he goes into the studio and figures it all out?”

  There seemed little more to say. Allison felt a strange reluctance to leave Rick. He walked her to the van and opened her door again.

  “Well, thanks for the ride,” he said.

  “Same to you.” She smiled.

  He grinned, slammed the door, gave a good-bye salute, and sent Allison on her way wondering again where his hidden flaw was. Surely it would show up soon. The man was too good to be true.

  Chapter

  FOUR

  THE following day Allison had an argument with a stubborn fool at the Anderson Lumberyard who refused to deliver a partial pallet of bricks because its value was under fifty dollars. When she explained her situation, he became even more belligerent, his raspy voice taking on an insolent tone. “Lady, we don’t deliver bricks to no sixth floor of no office building. If we can’t unload ’em with a forklift, we don’t unload ’em at all. You want your bricks up there, you carry ’em up yourself!”

  “But—”

  The dead wire told her she was talking to nobody. She slammed the receiver down and kicked the corner of her desk, angered as she so often was by things beyond her control.

  The phone rang and without thinking she jerked it to her ear and bawled into the mouthpiece, “Yaa,
hullo!”

  A few seconds of surprised silence passed, then a man’s voice said, “Oh, I must have the wrong number.”

  Realizing how rudely she’d answered, she clutched the phone and put on a far more congenial voice. “No . . . wait, sorry, this is Photo Images. What can I do for you?”

  “Ms. Scott?”

  “Yes, who . . . oh God, is this Rick Lang?”

  “You guessed it. Caught you being nasty on the phone again.”

  She sank into her swivel chair and hooked her boot heels on the edge of the desk. “Listen, I’m sorry. You must think I’m a real asp, but sometimes I get so mad at . . . at . . . well, at men!”

  “Hey, what’d I do?”

  “Oh, it’s not you, but do you mind if I blow off a little steam? I mean, all I asked for was a little partial load of bricks, and you’d think that damn fool could tell his truck driver to pull his truck up in front of the building and deposit them on the sidewalk or something! I mean, I wasn’t asking to have them hand carried up six flights! But no, the load isn’t worth enough for them to waste the gas. If they can’t take it off with a forklift, they won’t take it off at all!”

  From his end Lang heard an ending sound like the growl of an angry bear while she worked off her frustration.

  At her end, Allison felt slightly sheepish when his understanding laugh came over the wire and he asked good-naturedly, “There, do you feel better now?”

  “No, dammit, I’ll have to carry those bricks by myself . . . yes, kind of . . . oh hell, I don’t know!” she blurted out in exasperation. But a minute later, Allison found her anger losing steam and finally disintegrating into self-effacing laughter. “Hey, I’m really sorry I took it out on you. It’s not your fault. And what if you’d been a paying customer wanting to hire me? I’d have alienated you with the first word.”

  “How do you know you didn’t? You still don’t know what I called for.”

  Allison dropped her feet to the floor, crossed her legs, leaned an elbow on the desk, and affected a sultry, ingratiating feminine drawl. “Good mawnin’ dahlin’, this’s Photo Images—hot coffee, hugs of greetin’, and free makeup with every sittin’, honey, so y’all come back, heah?”

  She was twisting a strand of hair coyly around an index finger as Lang’s full-throated laughter came over the wire, and she pictured him as he’d been last night in the woods, goofing around with the log, giving her a piggyback ride.

  But now he reminded Allison, “Hey, I didn’t get any hugs of greeting, and if I remember right, I’m the one who bought the coffee.”

  “But you’ll get free makeup when I take the shots, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee then, so we’ll be even.”

  “What about the hug?”

  Something fluttery and warm lifted Allison’s heart. She knew she was engaging in mild flirtation and shouldn’t be. She searched for a glib answer, leaning back and gazing at the ceiling. “Mmm, what about when you gave me that piggyback ride? What would you call that?”

  “You’re too quick, Ms. Allison Scott. I’ll let you off this time. What I called for was to check on your health today after last night’s frostbite in those flimsy little duck shoes of yours.”

  “No worse for wear.”

  “Not even a head cold?”

  “Not even.”

  “Well, good, at least I didn’t add another item to your list of grievances against . . . men.”

  Allison smiled, toying now with the dial on the phone, warmed by his thoughtfulness, though she didn’t want to be. But it had been a long time since anyone other than Mattie had been concerned about her welfare. Certainly Jason had never been. With Jason it was always her catering to him.

  “Listen, what’s all this about the bricks anyway? Can I help?” he offered.

  “No, it’s not your problem, it’s mine. I need them to weigh down the plastic so I can build a lake.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No, I’m not! Have you ever heard of a beach without a lake?”

  “Wouldn’t it have been easier to take the pictures in the summer and use a real lake?”

  “No challenge in that.”

  “Oh, you like a challenge, do you, Ms. Scott?”

  “Rather. Besides, contracts like this don’t always accommodate the seasons. I knew when I accepted that it would present problems, but it was just too good a chance to pass up. This cover will be for a new line of books coming out next year, and if I give them what they want, chances are I’ll have my foot in the door. It’d be wonderful to know where my next month’s grocery money was coming from . . . and the next, and the next.”

  “I know the feeling well and I admire your guts, but I’ll still have to see it to believe it—a lake, a beach, and a bonfire?”

  “Do you doubt me, Mr. Lang?”

  “I have the feeling I shouldn’t, but I do. It sounds impossible.”

  “Nothing is impossible if you want it badly enough, and I want this to be the best damn cover Hathaway Romances sees between now and June, so they beat my door down to get me to do a hundred more.”

  Rick Lang was beginning to admire the lady more and more. He couldn’t wait to see how in the world she would build that lake. “So what about the bricks? Could I help? I haven’t got a forklift, but I’ve got two good hands.”

  “Listen, you’ve done enough already, helping me get that log up here. I can handle the rest myself. The only thing is, if it takes me longer than I thought, we might have to delay the shooting for a day. But I’ll call you and let you know when the set is ready. If we can’t shoot Thursday, could you make it Friday instead?”

  “Sure . . . whenever.”

  There was a pause in the conversation, and Allison suddenly felt reluctant to end it. Rick Lang was turning out to be one of the most congenial and warm men she’d ever met.

  “Well . . . thank you again for checking on me, but as I said, there’s no need to start cooking chicken soup.”

  “My pet hen will be glad to hear that.”

  They laughed together for a moment, and the line seemed to hum with expectancy.

  “I’ll call,” Allison promised. “See you either Thursday or Friday night, six o’clock.”

  “Right. Bye.”

  But after the word was spoken Allison waited for a click, telling her Rick Lang had hung up. A full ten seconds passed, and she heard nothing. A curious throat-filling exhilaration tightened her skin, like back in high school when the boy you had a crush on stared at you across the classroom for the first time. Five more seconds of silence hummed past, and at last Allison heard the click. As if the phone had turned hot, she dropped the receiver onto the cradle, jumped back, and jammed her hands hard into her pants pockets, staring at the instrument with her heart hammering in her temples.

  Scott, you’re a giddy fool! she harped silently. Go get your load of bricks!

  She drove the van to the lumber yard, where she bought a roll of strong, black plastic and the partial pallet of bricks. When she started loading them single-handedly, the men at the loading dock felt sheepish enough to lend a hand.

  Back at the Genesis Building it took almost two hours to round up the head janitor and locate a freight dolly, and by that time Allison’s temper was flaring again. At this rate she might as well wait and shoot the scenes at Lake Calhoun, come summer!

  By four o’clock in the afternoon it was cold and windy in the canyons between the tall buildings as she backed the van up to the dock platform. The alley was dismal, foreboding, and the cold was no palliative for her temper. Allison shivered, then pulled on leather gloves and began the arduous task of transferring the bricks two at a time from the van to the wide, flat dolly. According to the radio, the windchill had sent the temperature down to minus forty. Allison tugged the thick knit cap lower over her ears and forehead. The icy air caused a pain smack between her eyes. As she bent and stooped, the wind seemed to swirl and chill and find every hidden path into the breaks between her layers of clothing.
br />   Damn that stingy lumberyard! she cursed silently, thunking down two bricks and turning back for two more. Allison’s nose was drippy, and her fingers had turned to icicles. She looked like a disgruntled kodiak bear, bundled up in an ugly old army-green parka with her hat covering her eyebrows.

  “Ms. Scott, you’re going to give yourself a hernia if you don’t slow down.”

  Allison spun around, a brick in each hand, and peered from the depths of the van to find Rick Lang lounging against the doorway beside the freight dolly, smiling in amusement. The ugly, utilitarian bobcap had slipped so far down it now almost covered her eyes. She had to tip her head way back to peer at him from under it. At that moment, to Allison’s horror, she felt a trickle of mucous run warmly from her nose down to her lip. Sniffing frantically, she thought, Oh no! Oh dear! I look like the abominable snowman! And damn, why did my nose have to run right now?

  “Oh, God, how did you find me here?” she wailed.

  “The studio was unlocked and the lights were on, so I figured you must be unloading bricks—I thought you’d be at the loading dock.”

  Before she could hide or run, he was pulling on thick leather gloves and bounding onto the back of the van. Automatically she bent over and covered her head with both hands. From the muffled depths came the wail, “Ohhhhhhh, hell! I look like the wrath of God.”

  He answered with a wide-mouthed laugh, then she felt a hand rough up her bobcap teasingly and push her face momentarily farther toward her knees.

  “Hey, you look like an honest working woman, so let’s get to work.”

  When spring comes, she promised herself, I’m gonna bury this ugly cap in the garden!

  She stood up, knowing her face was beet red, thankful he couldn’t see much of it in the dim light of the dock area. She peered up into his smiling blue eyes, sliding the bobcap farther back on her head. Immediately it slid back where it wanted to be, and any lingering delusions Allison might have had about her appearance vanished. She must be about as appealing as a seven-year-old boy after an afternoon of sledding. Horrified, she felt her nose dripping again. Rick Lang just stood there and boldly laughed at her, a pair of bricks in his hands.