“You made your point. I didn’t rub it in that I cook better than you.”
“Not better. You cook—I don’t. Period.”
“Whatever.” Chase sighed and got to his feet. “Well, since you won’t let me weed, I’ll be on my way. Do you need anything from town? I have to run some errands.”
Gypsy paused in her work long enough to look up at him. “Now that you mention it—I could use a gallon of milk.”
“Is Saturday milk day?” he asked interestedly.
“No, Monday is.”
“You’re going to drink a gallon of milk on Monday? It’ll spoil if you don’t.”
“I use it for cereal. That doesn’t count as a drink.”
“Right.” He nodded slowly. “Uh… what’re you doing this afternoon?”
Glancing past his shoulder, Gypsy saw Corsair about to launch himself. “Step back!” she ordered briskly.
Instinctively Chase did so, and Corsair overshot him to land with a disgruntled expression in the grass beside Gypsy. The cat’s face seemed to proclaim irritably that not even a cat could pause to correct his aim in midair.
“I told you he didn’t like me.”
Gypsy swatted the cat firmly. “Leave!”
Corsair stalked toward the house with offended dignity.
“Sorry,” Gypsy murmured. “I can’t understand it; Corsair likes everybody.”
“Everybody but me.”
“I may have misjudged you about the keys,” Gypsy said slowly.
“Good of you to admit it.”
“I’m nothing if not fair.”
“I won’t comment on that. You didn’t answer my question. What’re you going to be doing this afternoon?”
“I usually go for a walk on the beach, but I won’t know for sure what I’ll be doing until then.”
“Don’t believe in planning ahead, eh?”
“I treasure spontaneity.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. One gallon of milk coming up.” Lifting one hand in a small salute, Chase headed across to his house.
Gypsy stared after him. It occurred to her that anyone listening to one of their conversations—particularly if he or she came in on the middle of it—would be totally bewildered. Neither she nor Chase ever lost the thread. It was as if they were mentally attuned, on the same wavelength.
It was a disturbing thought.
She put more energy into her attack on the weeds, slaughtering without mercy while frowning at the thoughts that flitted through her mind.
She was in trouble. Definite trouble. Chase possessed a sharp intelligence, a highly-developed sense of the ridiculous, and an indefinable talent for holding her interest—no mean accomplishment, considering her wayward mind. He was also fatally charming.
Besides … she’d always had a thing about redheads.
Gypsy uprooted a marigold by mistake, and hastily replanted it. Damn! She was thinking about him too much. It didn’t help to remind herself of that. Long hours at her typewriter had taught her that the mind was a peculiar instrument, given to absurd flights of fancy all mixed up with spans of rational thought.
If only there were a lever that she could switch from ABSURD to RATIONAL. But no such luck.
Her lever was stuck on ABSURD. Or something was. Why else was she kneeling here on the grass and wistfully contemplating a relationship with a man? Particularly that man?
“Face it,” she told four marigolds and a rose. “You’d drive him crazy inside a week—once you really started to work. And he’d play merry hell with your concentration.”
She worked vigorously with the trowel to loosen the soil around her audience. “And you don’t want to get involved. You don’t. Just think… you’d have to live in one house for years. And he’d expect you to learn how to cook—you know he would. And he wouldn’t like whatisits in the refrigerator, or dirty clothes strewn through the house, or cat hair on the couch. Especially Corsair’s hair.
“The smart thing to do would be to sink your scruples and settle for an affair,” she told her audience, dirt flying like rain as she unconsciously dug a hole at the edge of the bed. “At least then you wouldn’t have to go to court whenever he decided that enough was enough. You’d just politely help him pack his suitcases—or pack yours—and call it quits. Nice and civilized.”
She frowned as a drop of moisture fell onto her hand. “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” she muttered angrily, swiping at a second tear with the back of one dirty hand. “It hasn’t even begun, and already you’re crying because it’s over!”
Gypsy filled the minor excavation with dirt, dropped the trowel into her basket, and rose to her feet. She picked up the basket and stared down at the colorful flowers for a moment. Then she turned and made her way toward the house.
“Everybody talks to plants,” she muttered aloud. “They make good listeners; they don’t butt in with sensible suggestions, and they don’t warn you when you’re about to make an utter fool of yourself!”
Since Chase had arranged to have Daisy towed to a garage for repairs (Gypsy didn’t hold out much hope), she was pretty much housebound. Chase hadn’t specified any length of time for his “errands,” but the morning dragged on with no sign of him, and Gypsy was bored.
She didn’t feel like writing. Gardening had palled decidedly. She played fetch with Bucephalus for an hour, but then he got bored. She tried to teach Corsair to play the same game; for her pains, she got a stony glare from china-blue eyes and a swishing tail indicative of cold contempt.
“Why do I put up with you, cat?”
“Waurrr.”
“Right. Go away.”
She watched as Corsair headed for the shade of a nearby tree in the backyard, then glanced at her watch. Twelve o’clock. The morning was gone, and she hadn’t accomplished a thing. Wonderful.
Gypsy walked across the lawn to the redwood railing placed about two feet inside the edge of the cliff. She leaned on the railing for a few moments, gazing out over the Pacific and thinking muddled thoughts. Maybe a walk on the beach would clear the cobwebs away.
She followed the railing to the zigzagging staircase leading down to the beach. On the way down, she absently glanced across to the twin staircase leading from Chase’s backyard. The beach below was narrow as beaches go, but it was private for a quarter of a mile in either direction. North and south of the private stretch were various small towns, and, of course, other privately owned properties.
But only these two homes possessed the eagle’s perch of the cliffs. In this area anyway.
Gypsy loved it.
Barefoot as usual, she walked out to the water’s edge and stood listening to the roar of the surf. It was a comforting sound. A comfortable sound. Endlessly steady, endlessly consistent, though at the moment it possessed the disturbing trick of reminding one of one’s own mortality.
Frowning, Gypsy turned and walked back a few feet toward the cliffs. She stopped at the large, water-smoothed rock jutting up out of the sand. It was a favorite “place of contemplation” for her, and she sat now in the small seatlike depression in its side.
Mortality.
It was one of those odd, off-center, out-of-sync moments. Gypsy wasn’t generally given to soul-searching, but in that moment she searched. And she discovered one of life’s truths: that complacency had a disconcerting habit of shattering suddenly and without warning.
How many times had she told herself that her life was perfect, that she had no need to change it? How many times had she asserted with utter confidence that she needed no one but herself to be happy?
Gypsy’s frown, holding a hint of panic, deepened as she stared out over the ocean. Had she been wrong all these years? No. No, not wrong. Not then. She’d needed those years to work at her writing, to grow as a person.
But had she grown? Yes … and no. She’d certainly grown as a writer. And she was a well-rounded person; she had interests other than writing, and she got along well with other people. But she’d never opened herself up tota
lly to another person.
For person, she thought wryly, read man. No relationships, other than the strictly casual. No vulnerability on that level. No chance of heartache. And… no growth?
She was more confused than ever. Who, she wondered despairingly, had conceived the unwritten rulebook on human relationships? Who had decreed long ago in some primal age that total growth as a human being was possible only by risking total vulnerability?
Reluctantly Gypsy turned from the philosophical and abstract to the concrete and specific. Chase.
She was reasonably certain that she didn’t need Chase—or any other man—to be happy. At the same time she had no idea whether or not that mythical man could make her happier.
And for her—more so, she thought, than with most other women—any relationship would be a great risk. She already had one strike against her: She was difficult, if not impossible, to live with. And she wasn’t even sure that she could live for more than a few months in one place.
And then there was—
Gypsy’s thoughts broke off abruptly as a sound intruded on her consciousness. If she didn’t know better… it sounded like hoofbeats. She got to her feet and stepped away from the rock, looking first to the south. Nope—nothing there. Definite hoofbeats, and they were getting louder. She turned toward the north.
The horse was coming up the middle of the narrow beach at a gallop. It was pure white and absolutely gorgeous. The black saddle and bridle stood out starkly, and the metal studs decorating the saddle glinted in the sunlight. And on the horse’s back was a man.
In the brief moment granted her for reflection, Gypsy felt distinctly odd. It was as if she’d stepped into the pages of fiction… or into the world of film fantasy.
The rider was dressed all in white—pants, boots, gloves, and shirt. The shirt was the pirate-type, full sleeves caught in tight cuffs at the wrist and unbuttoned halfway down. And the rider wore a mask and a black kerchief affair which hid all his hair. Almost all. A copper gleam showed.
Gypsy took all that in in the space of seconds. And then horse and rider were beside her, and the totally unexpected happened. Gypsy would have sworn that it couldn’t be done except by trained stuntpeople on a movie set. Forever afterward, she maintained that it was sheer luck, not careful planning, that brought it off.
The horse slid to a halt with beautiful precision, leaving the rider exactly abreast of Gypsy. Then the animal stood like a stone while the rider leaned over and down.
“Wha—” was all she managed to utter.
She was swept up with one strong arm, and ended up sitting across the rider’s lap. Through the slits of his mask, darkened eyes gleamed with a hint of green for just a moment. And then he was kissing her.
Ravishment would have been in keeping with the image, she supposed dimly, but the rider didn’t use an ounce of force. He didn’t have to. He kissed her as if she were a cherished, treasured thing, and Gypsy would have been less than human—and less of a woman—to resist that.
She felt the silk beneath her fingers as her hands came to rest naturally—one touching his chest and the other gripping his upper arm. The dark gold hair at the opening of the shirt teased her thumb, and the hand at her waist burned oddly. The hard thighs beneath her were a potent seduction.
She felt the world spinning away, and released it gladly. Her lips parted, allowing—inviting—his exploring tongue. Fire raced through her veins and scorched her nerve endings. She felt the arm around her waist tighten, and then… the devastating kiss ended as abruptly as it had begun.
Gypsy was lowered back to the sand, green eyes glinted at her briefly, and then the horse leaped away.
Dazedly she stared after them. She took a couple of steps back and found her seat by touch alone, sinking down weakly.
The horse and rider had disappeared. Without conscious thought she murmured, “Say, who was that masked man?”
Then she giggled. The giggle exploded into laughter a split second later. Gypsy laughed until her sides ached. Finally she wiped streaming eyes, and tried to gather her scattered wits. In a long and eventful life nothing quite so wild had ever happened to her.
A gleam from the sand at her feet caught her attention, and she bent down to see what it was. She held the object in her hand for a long moment, then her fingers closed around it and she laughed again.
Delighted laughter.
It occurred to Gypsy as she climbed the stairs to her backyard a few minutes later that Chase had somehow found the time to plan that little scene very carefully. Where had he got the horse? And how could he have been certain that she’d take a walk on the beach? The only thing she didn’t wonder about was the point of it all.
Heroes.
She crossed the yard and entered the house through the kitchen, still giggling. Who would have thought the man would go to such absurd lengths to catch her attention? Why in heaven’s name hadn’t some woman latched onto him years ago?
Gypsy hastily brushed that last thought away.
There was a gallon of milk in her refrigerator, and no sign of the Mercedes next door. She smiled and went on through the house to her work area. After a moment’s deliberation she placed the masked rider’s souvenir on the middle shelf of her bookcase. She studied the effect for a moment, nodded to herself, and sat down at the desk.
This time she did accomplish some work. Her notes fell into place naturally, and she didn’t foresee any major problem with the forthcoming book. Aside from pushing Corsair off the desk twice and firmly putting Bucephalus outside after he’d chewed on her ankle for the third time, she worked undisturbed.
“You should lock your doors. Anybody could come in.”
It was Chase, back in his jeans and shirt of the morning, and carrying a bag from a hamburger place in town. Before she could say a word, he was going on cheerfully.
“Hamburgers; I didn’t feel like cooking. Let’s eat.” He headed for the kitchen.
Gypsy rose from the desk, smiling to herself. So he was going to play innocent, eh? Well, she could play that game as well. It occurred to her wryly that Chase was rapidly on his way to becoming a fixture around the place … but she didn’t have the heart to send him away.
At least that’s what she told herself.
“How do you know I haven’t already eaten?” she asked, following him into the kitchen. “It’s past two o’clock.”
“You’ve obviously been busy; I guessed that you’d forget about lunch. What’s the drink for the day? I forgot to ask this morning.”
“Juice. I’m having tomato.”
“With hamburgers?”
“With anything. What would you like?”
“The same; I’m always open to new experiences.”
Gypsy started to comment on his remark, then thought better of it. She poured the juice while he was setting out their lunch on the bar.
“Will you do something about this dog? I’m going to fall over him and break my neck.”
“He’s supposed to be outside. Why did you let him back in?”
“I don’t argue with a dog that size.”
“Right. Out, Bucephalus.” She put the dog back out in the yard.
“Salt?” he asked politely, holding up a salt-shaker when they were seated.
“No, thank you.” Gypsy tasted the hamburger thoughtfully “I notice you ordered them both with everything.”
“Certainly I did. That way, no one gets offended later.”
“Later?”
“When we make mad passionate love together, of course.”
“Is that what we’re going to do?”
“Eventually.”
“Oh.”
“You could sound a little more enthusiastic,” he reproved gravely.
“Sorry. It’s just that I’ve never heard something like that announced quite so calmly. Or so arbitrarily.”
“My military upbringing, I suppose.”
“Better learn to rise above it.”
“What?”
r /> “Your military upbringing. We’ve agreed that I don’t like to be ordered around.”
“I didn’t order you around. I just stated a fact.”
“That we’re going to make mad passionate love together.”
“That’s right.”
“Best laid schemes, and all that.”
“Ever hear the one about the dropping of water on stone?”
“Are you trying to say—”
“I’ll wear down your resistance eventually.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, if I were you.”
“But you’re not me, Gypsy mine.”
“I’m not yours either.”
“We’ll be each other’s—how’s that?”
“The last thing I need in my life is a man who accuses my cat of leading him up a tree.”
“Let’s forget about that, shall we?”
“Put down that catsup bottle!” Gypsy giggled in spite of herself. “I’ll never forget. That’s another of my faults, by the way.”
“You seem to have a regular catalog of faults.”
“Precisely. Sorry for the disappointment, but I’m sure you can find somebody else to while away your vacation with.”
“One of my faults, Gypsy mine, is that once I set my mind on something, I never give up.”
four
GYPSY THOUGHT ABOUT THAT CALM STATEMENT during the remainder of the day. As a declaration of intent, she decided, it lacked something. And what it lacked was a simple definition of intent. Just exactly what had he set his mind on? Her, apparently. But what exactly did he—
Oh, never mind! she told herself irritably. It wasn’t going to do her a bit of good to keep wondering about it.
And in the meantime Chase was making his presence felt. Not in a big way; he left right after lunch, politely saying that he didn’t want to interrupt her work. But he came back. He came back four times to be precise—between three and six P.M. Each time, he stuck his head around the corner of her work area and apologized solemnly for bothering her. And each time he asked to borrow something. A cup of sugar, a stick of butter, two cups of milk, and a bud vase, respectively.
It was the bud vase that piqued Gypsy’s curiosity.