Thor, listening intently, lost his knight in an absent move and sent a glare toward Pepper. She smiled gently at him and went on with the conversation.
“Yes, Yes. What? No, that was Istanbul. Of course, I’m sure! Well, I bought the thing, didn’t I? It was Istanbul. No, the sari came from India. What is this anyway? You taking inventory? Oh. Oh, I see. Well, tell Marsha that saris come from India and sarongs from the Orient. Yes. Okay, fine. See you.” She hung up the phone, smiled faintly at the two men staring at her, and headed back for the mudroom.
“Istanbul?” Cody asked plaintively.
Thor sighed. “Don’t look at me. I haven’t figured her out yet.”
They went back to the game. But they were destined to listen in on three more conversations, Pepper’s end of them, anyway. None of them made sense. The callers were male, male, and female respectively, which was all that Thor could attest to. Unless, of course, he could offer his opinion that all three callers were holding onto their sanity by the skin of their teeth.
But Pepper’s end of the conversations was intriguing.
“You did what? That wasn’t very smart. Oh, really? Well, why did you listen to him? That’s ridiculous! Just because she’s from Hong Kong— I hope you decked him. Oh, good! Both eyes? Nice going, hero. Raw steak. Really, it works very well.
Of course, I’m sure. Oh, does she? Well, some of those ancient remedies are terrific, you know. No. No, I’ll probably be down that way in a few weeks. Sure. Hey—call Cal and tell him; he’ll get a kick out of it. Okay. Bye.”
“No, I’m grooming Kristen’s dogs. England. An English breeder. If you keep laughing like that, you’ll hurt yourself. Of course, she doesn’t realize—what a ridiculous question! Him either. A dog show. Me? In London. A friend of a friend, you know. Who? That was Thor. Don’t bother; I’m taking all the best god-of-thunder jokes. I’m working on it. No, very nice. Look, if you called just to exercise your giggle box— What? Men have giggle boxes, idiot. And yours is upside down. Funny, that’s funny Right. Okay, you— What? Oh. Belladonna. Yes, the berries are poisonous. You need the whole plant? Let’s see … Hemlock then. Seeds, leaves, and roots. Of course, I’m sure. Okay, bye.”
“Hemlock?” Cody murmured uneasily. “D’you suppose he wants to poison somebody?”
“Beats the hell out of me,” Thor said.
Cody reflected for a moment. “An ad in the paper, you said.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Oh, hi! When did you get back? Really? Did he give you that cute little chalet halfway up? Good. Wasn’t the view terrific? Well, I’d think you could have stuck your heads out at least once! What’s the use of being in the Alps unless you— Did you? That’s something, anyway! Paris, huh? Who? Oh, did he? A running chess game. No, for six months while I was on the Left Bank. Didn’t he tell you? No, they raided that club; that’s how we met. I wasn’t doing anything. I was just there. Overnight. Everybody else slept and we played chess. Did he say that? Liar! He only arrested me so I’d give him a game; nobody else was up to his weight. No, he never put it on the records. Did you tell him that? Well, I’ll give him a call sometime. Sure. Don’t mention it. Give him my love, okay? Bye.”
By then Thor’s game was in shreds. “Arrested,” he muttered, staring across the board at Cody. “Good Lord!”
“Sounded harmless,” Cody ventured cautiously.
“She’s probably wanted for murder somewhere.”
“You think so?”
“Hell, I— Oh, never mind. I concede the game, dammit. Let’s try poker.”
“You’re the host.”
Lunch turned out to be run-of-the-mill steak and salad, which prompted Thor to ask Mrs. Small sardonically if she’d run out of “Pepper’s Authentic Recipes,” a question she didn’t deign to answer. Pepper turned up for the meal looking even more harassed, and accused Thor of trying to drive her to an early grave.
“I think you’ve got that backward,” he told her.
“No, I haven’t. You let Brutus and Fifi out hours ago, and they found something to roll in that smells terrible. Tim’s gone home for lunch, and the pets have to stay out in the mudroom until I can wash them.”
“So?” Thor was unsympathetic.
Pepper glared at him. “So Brutus is taunting Malfi’s Rising Star through the wire and Fifi thinks she’s being punished! She’s almost hysterical!”
Cody choked on his baked potato, and Thor pounded him on the back with more force than necessary.
“Quit it!” Cody managed, eyes watering.
Pepper took her seat in something of a huff, but her normally sunny temper rapidly reasserted itself and she became cheerful again. “Oh, well. At least most of the clients are done. There’s just Sunnydale to do, and none tomorrow. After today I need a break!”
“Don’t we all,” Thor murmured.
“Funny man. Did you beat him, Cody?”
“The chess game? He conceded.”
“Was he a good loser?”
“Not really. He never is.”
“Ah. I’d better keep that in mind.”
“Really? Why?”
Thor tapped his water glass with his fork. “Hey, guys— guess who’s here?”
“The god of thunder, breathing fire,” Pepper murmured.
“Striking sparks with his magic hammer,” Cody contributed solemnly.
“Why didn’t my parents name me George?” Thor asked the ceiling.
Pepper subjected him to a critical scrutiny. “You don’t look like a George. You look like a Thor.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Do I look like a Cody?” Cody asked politely.
Pepper gave him the same critical appraisal. “Yes.”
“Brief and to the point,” Cody noted dryly.
“You asked.”
“She’s honest,” Thor told his friend.
“A woman in a million, in fact.” Cody was approving.
Thor winced. “Well, there’s honesty… and then there’s honesty.”
Trying to hide her amusement, Pepper looked at him gravely. “Would you like me to lie a little? I can, you know. With the best of them.”
Thor looked as though there were quite a few things he could have said to that had Cody not been present. Instead, he said wryly, “Of course you can; you’re a woman.”
It was Pepper’s turn to wince. “Damn, could I get you with that one! I hate blanket statements.” Quite deliberately she added, “Besides, If you haven’t learned by now not to stick any kind of label on me, then there is something badly wrong with your faculties.”
Thor sipped iced tea and stared at her over the rim of his glass, refusing to be drawn. It was Cody who had a remark to follow hers.
“It occurs to me,” he said consideringly as he gazed at Pepper, “that for all your little-girl voice and lack of inches, you are a formidable lady.”
Pepper looked at him, totally deadpan. “Better men than you have learned that—to their cost,” she said, and lifted an eyebrow at him.
After a moment, Cody turned a mournful stare on Thor. “My friend, you are down for the count.”
Thor choked slightly, taken by surprise since he was unaware that Pepper had blurted out her true intentions to Cody after barely laying eyes on him. Before he could respond, Pepper did.
“The count is nine,” she murmured, demonstrating a knowledge of boxing terminology. Rising with her cleared plate, she added a tsk-tsk sound and said, “Kayoed—and at his age too.” She went away to the kitchen.
“An ad in a newspaper,” Cody said slowly.
Thor could only nod.
“Classified?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did she come with Green Stamps?” “If you want a bed to sleep in tonight,” Thor said threateningly, “shut up.” “Uh…yes.”
The rest of the day went smoothly—compared to the morning. Pepper finished the grooming of the last of her clients and left Tim to watch over them un
til their proud owners picked them up. She got Brutus and Fifi cleaned up, then went and took a shower herself.
When she came back downstairs, she found Thor sharing the den with two disgruntled pets. Brutus was sulking after the indignity of a bath, and Fifi was lying as close as possible to Thor’s chair and looking nervous. Thor was absently shuffling a deck of playing cards.
“Where’s Cody?” Pepper asked as she came into the room.
“Pestering Mrs. Small.” Thor looked at her, eyes hooded. “It’s a favorite pastime of his.”
Pepper laughed. “It figures.” She went over to sit on the couch, pushing Brutus to one side and ignoring his irritated grumble.
“I’m sorry about last night,” Thor said suddenly.
Determined to keep it light, Pepper said, “Sorry you left so abruptly? Or sorry that it happened at all?” Belatedly she realized that this was their first moment alone together since last night.
He smiled a little. “Sorry I left so abruptly.”
She shrugged. “Well, I did sort of hit you over the head, didn’t I? I seem to have lost all ability to be… subtle.”
Thor stared at her for a long moment. When he spoke, his words came slowly, consideringly, but his voice was raw around the edges. “Do you know… I’ve been through more emotions in the past twenty-four hours than I have in years. From amusement to absolute fury And through it all—through it all, I’ve wanted you more and more with every second that passed.”
Pepper swallowed hard. “You don’t like it.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are you? What about the chase?”
She glanced down as Brutus gave up his sulks and climbed into her lap. Absently she petted him. “I don’t know, Thor. I just know that I’m sorry you feel that way. I feel as if… as if I’ve known you for a long time. I feel as if you should be my friend. But whenever I look at you and think friend, then I see lover. As if you can’t be one or the other without being both. I’ve never looked at a man that way. I don’t know quite how to deal with that.”
Thor waited until she met his steady gaze, then said with odd gentleness, “Brave talk aside?”
Pepper smiled, recalling her arrogant remarks about chasing all the way to hell and knockout punches. “Brave talk aside. When you’re small, you learn to talk big—or get run over. You also learn determination.” Her violet eyes were direct. “I may lose this time, Thor, but I’ll know why.”
He nodded slowly, understanding what she was telling him. Win or lose, Pepper meant to find out why he avoided commitment. He could hardly blame her for that. Truth to tell, he wanted her to know. But he wasn’t yet ready to tell her. And that bothered him, because he understood why. In the past he’d never hesitated to let a woman know why he avoided ties. Now he was hesitating.
Not because Pepper mattered too little … but because she mattered too much.
“Truce?” She was smiling at him. “I think we need a little breathing time, Thor.”
“Things have been happening a bit rapidly,” he agreed in a regretful tone.
“You can say that again!” She laughed unsteadily.
“Truce then. We’ll slow the carousel before we both fall off.”
Pepper grinned. “You know—between imagery, analogies, and metaphors, I think we’ve invented our own language!”
“I’ve always wanted to do that.”
“Fun, isn’t it?”
“Hello, all,” Cody said, coming into the room.
“It’s the one-eyed jack,” Thor told Pepper.
“Better than a suicide king,” she said solemnly.
“Not if jacks are wild.”
“Are they?”
“One-eyed jacks and deuces.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
Cody cast a bewildered look down at the growling Chihuahua attached to one leg of his jeans, then apparently decided to ignore it since everyone else was. “Not to me, it doesn’t. Have I wandered into a verbal poker game?”
“Speaking of which”—Thor briskly shuffled the cards he still held—“why don’t we play a few hands? If, that is, Pepper’ll push the sleeves of her sweater up and submit to a body search before every hand.”
“Oh, that’s cute!” she told him dryly.
“It was worth a try.”
“Hey, fella, I don’t have to cheat to win.”
“Let’s take her money, Cody.”
“I’m game.”
“Cut for the deal. Ten of clubs.”
“Jack of diamonds,” Cody announced. “Go away, Brutus.”
“Queen of hearts.” Pepper smiled. “I deal.”
Thor looked suspicious. “You cut that card every time!”
“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Push back your sleeves, dammit.”
“Will somebody get this savage creature away from my ankle?”
Pepper didn’t win every hand. Just most of them.
With a truce declared and scrupulously honored by both sides, an odd sort of harmony settled into their relationship. It was aided during the first couple of days by Cody, who was, whether he was aware of it or not, a buffer who allowed them to find the distance they needed.
Since Pepper was free of her grooming duties on Wednesday, all three spent the day just enjoying themselves. They played chess and cards and charades indoors. They raked leaves outside because of the windy night before, finishing with the inevitable leaf-fight. All three were energetic, athletic, and competitive, which meant that they were exhausted by the end of the day.
Mrs. Small continued to lay before them various culinary examples of Pepper’s travels, leaving palates in a state of perpetual shock. Brutus attacked Cody about every three hours— apparently on principle.
Cody left early Thursday morning, his only comment on the relationship being a private one to Pepper just before he went.
“Stick around, huh? You’ve been good for him.”
His words were good for Pepper. He knew Thor better than she did, after all, and if he approved… well, it shored up her flagging confidence. In the meantime, however, the truce went on.
Pepper taught Thor to deal crooked hands at poker, argued furiously with him over which team was best on televised football games, and soundly defeated him at chess for four solid days before he discovered that he was able to psych her out by carrying on a ridiculous conversation all the while.
His favorite method was to conduct a guessing game as to how exactly Pepper had misspent the past years. Although still searching for the pieces to the puzzle, he kept it light and leaned toward the absurd. He might not have learned much about her past that way, but he beat her at chess.
“I know! You’re a spy.”
“It’s your move,” she said dryly.
“A double agent, probably.”
“Smile when you say that.”
“What’s the going rate for spies these days?”
“Cheap. It’s a buyer’s market.”
“No, really? I’d think the other way around.”
“There’s a waiting list for the spy school,” she drawled.
“Maybe I could add my name to the list. Who do I see about that?”
“Your local spy-recruiter, of course.”
“Put in a good word for me?”
“Not on your life. Move!” she ordered.
“There.”
“Damn.”
“Checkmate.”
“Arrested in Paris, were you?”
“Eavesdropper.”
“Always. Why were you arrested?”
“Jaywalking.”
“Funny.”
“Great comeback.”
“I’ll do better next time.”
“Do that.”
“If not a spy, you were a smuggler.”
“Was I?”
“That was a dumb move. I think my guess hit close to home.”
“Ridiculous.”
“Admit it—I shook
you that time.”
“Not a chance.”
“You’re awfully small to be a smuggler.”
“I fit into small places.”
“True.”
“Check.”
“Ah. Wasn’t a dumb move after all….”
“You know—something’s just occurred to me.”
“Did anybody ever tell you that you could talk the hind leg off a donkey?”
“Now, that’s the pot calling the kettle black with a vengeance!”
“Funny man. What’s occurred to your busy brain?”
“I don’t know your last name.”
“You don’t know my first name.”
“What? What’s Pepper then?”
“A nickname.”
“You mean I don’t know either of your names?”
“Nope.”
“I’m living with a lady whose name I don’t know?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
“Well, hell. Tell me then.” “Sorry. You waited too long to ask.” “I’ll ask Mrs. Small.” “She won’t tell you.” “I’ll find your driver’s license.”
“It’s in the van and you promised not to go in there.” “Dammit.” “Checkmate.” “What?”
“I’ve caught on to your little game now, guy. And two can play it. We’ll see who psychs out who.” “Great. That’s just great.”
“We could arm-wrestle. I’m sure you’d win at that.” “You’re a lot of help.”
seven
THAT FIRST WEEK SLIPPED BY AND THEN A second one. Pepper received calls from her friends from time to time, calls to which Thor listened unabashedly and from which he learned absolutely nothing concrete. The clients came and were groomed and left. Meals continued to be exotic. The truce went on.
Since it was always her recipes and never her cooking that Thor sampled, he challenged her assertion of being able to cook on Mrs. Small’s next day off. Pepper pulled out all the stops, whipping up culinary masterpieces that would have had the great chefs of Europe crying into their bouillabaisses. By the time a groaning Thor pushed himself away from the table that night, he willingly conceded that Pepper could, indeed, cook.
Thor complimented her solemnly on her “wonderful little feminine talents,” which goaded Pepper into sitting up three nights running to knit a scarf for him. She presented the scarf and asked sweetly if he had any buttons that needed sewing on… socks to be darned?