Even now, Zane was convinced he would have taken her right there in the library if the electricity hadn’t come on.
Talk about the cold light of reality.
Eventually he had found the strength to send her back upstairs. But after she’d left, he’d been alone to battle his own private demons. As dawn inched its way over the skyline, Zane had made his decision.
Because he was weak, because he didn’t have the sense the good Lord gave a duck when it came to this woman, there was no help for it. He refused to see her again. Refused to let her dawdle in his thoughts. Refused to care about her.
Only, his dictates hadn’t worked any better than his vow not to touch her. Thoughts of Lesley had hounded him from the moment he’d watched her drive away that morning. And the matter hadn’t improved with time—not even after a week.
Nothing would change, and he knew it. Not in two weeks. And not in a month.
Zane stood, and slammed his mug on the kitchen table. Coffee sloshed over the edges, staining the place mat.
Mrs. Applegate gasped and placed her hand over her heart. “Is something wrong?”
“Not a thing,” he said with a snarl. He glared at Carl, half expecting a reaction from his friend, but the former soldier gave him none.
To irritate him further, Mrs. Applegate chuckled. Apparently she found something amusing. She faced both men and shook her head. “If wise men play the fool, they do it with a vengeance.”
Zane hesitated. He didn’t like being referred to as a fool, especially by the motherly housekeeper he considered a friend. “What does that mean?” he demanded.
“What do you think it means?” Carl answered, sounding none-too-pleased himself. “You’ve got a burr up your butt about something. That much is obvious.”
“Look who’s talking! You haven’t said a civil word in days. Not since you showed up with a broken nose and a black eye. What going on with you?”
“Same as you,” Carl snapped. “I’ve got woman troubles.”
“Who said this had anything to do with a woman?” Zane asked and wondered when he’d become that easy to read.
Carl took a long, thoughtful drink of his coffee, then shrugged. “I can’t think of anything else that would put both of us in such foul moods, can you?”
“Hell, no.”
Carl smiled for the first time in days. “That’s what I thought.”
Zane stormed out of the kitchen, unreasonably angry and not sure why. He had what he wanted. He’d made certain he wouldn’t be seeing Lesley again. He should be happy.
He walked into the library, drawn once more to the blueprints that had been delivered the previous day.
The phone rang, and with his eyes still on the plans, he reached for the receiver.
“Zane Ackerman,” he said briskly into the mouthpiece.
The person on the other end of the line hesitated. Just when Zane was about to replace the receiver, she spoke. “Zane.”
His eyes slammed shut and he gritted his teeth in frustration. He didn’t want to talk to Lesley, especially when his defenses were already weakened. The woman wasn’t stupid; she knew the power she held over him.
“Did the plans arrive?” she asked hesitantly.
“Yes.” He relaxed. So this was the reason for her call. He would assure her everything was fine and be done with it. “I looked them over first thing and couldn’t be more pleased.”
“I didn’t mean to trouble you, but I thought I should check since I’m going out of town for a few days.” She sounded as weary and formal as he did himself. “I’m pleased that everything met with your satisfaction.”
She was leaving town. Zane nearly choked on the questions that popped into his mind. Ones that were none of his business. Ones that would readily reveal the extent to which she dominated his thoughts.
“Business or pleasure?” he asked before he could stop himself.
“Business. I’m flying to Washington, D.C., this afternoon to meet with a budget committee.”
He relaxed, unreasonably relieved to know she wouldn’t be lazing on some Caribbean island with a lover. “Have a good trip.”
She laughed shakily. “Thanks. I’ll try, but I’m not that fond of flying. I know it’s ridiculous to worry, seeing that it’s the safest means of transportation, but I hate it.”
“Will you be flying alone?” There. He’d done it again. Asked a question to which he had no business knowing the answer.
“Not this time. Philip Wong, another architect, is accompanying me.”
He hadn’t so much as met the other man and already Zane hated him.
“I’m sure Jordan will be in touch with a bid for you soon,” Lesley concluded.
The anger inside Zane intensified because he couldn’t allow this woman’s softness into his life. Because that was what he desperately wanted. Now more than ever.
“Is that everything, then?” He knew he sounded brusque and unfriendly but he needed to get off the phone before she weakened him further.
“Yes.” Her soft voice sounded unbelievably hurt.
“Goodbye, Lesley.”
“Goodbye.” He waited for her to hang up, but neither of them seemed willing to sever the connection.
“Zane.”
He strained to hear his name. “What?” he demanded. This was what he got for playing silly mind games with himself.
“Thank you.”
She was thanking him? It made no sense when he’d rudely sent her out of his life. “For what?”
“For proving to me that I’m alive. For showing me that I can’t ignore my heart. I thought I was happy—I really did. I believed that my job and my interests were all I’d ever need. A friend told me what my real problem is and—” She stopped abruptly, as though she’d said more than she’d intended.
“A friend,” he repeated.
“It’s nothing.”
Zane smiled. He could hear the embarrassment in her voice and it intrigued him. “You’ve come this far—you can’t stop now. Tell me what it was your friend said.”
“She said…” Again Lesley hesitated.
Zane waited, not understanding why he continued to badger her when he should have ended the conversation five minutes earlier. “Yes?”
He heard her soft intake of breath. “Lucy says I’ve hit the snooze alarm on my biological clock one too many times.”
“You want a baby?” he asked before he had time to analyze the question.
Lesley’s voice revealed her longing. “More than anything.”
A pain he could neither explain nor identify sliced through him.
“I have to go. Goodbye, Zane.”
The phone line buzzed in his ear.
Carl had avoided going into town for the past week, and with good reason. Someone was bound to ask him about his black eye.
He suspected most folks in Sleepy Valley had heard about his fight with Derrick Showberg the night of the Grange dance. That much was general knowledge. The s.o.b. had broken his nose, but Showberg wasn’t the one responsible for his black eye.
He’d gotten that from Candy Hoffman, the woman who was anything but sweet.
A punch in the eye was his reward for coming to the fair damsel’s rescue. He’d have been better off lending a hand to a frustrated porcupine.
One would think Candy would be grateful for his help. She had stood there on the dance floor struggling against that ape, Showberg, tossing Carl pleading glances like greased balls in a fast-pitch baseball game. And what did Carl get for his effort? A nose that was permanently bent out of shape. Well, he could live without her gratitude.
Carl parked the truck and glanced around self-consciously before heading toward Buckwald Pharmacy. When Mrs. Applegate had learned he was driving into town, she’d asked if he’d pick up her prescription for blood pressure medication. Carl could think of no logical reason to refuse, although he didn’t relish the thought of someone asking about his black eye.
“Carl.”
&nbs
p; He tensed at the sound of Candy’s voice behind him. He whirled around, none-too-pleased to see her. It was just his luck to run into the little she-devil.
“What do you want now?” he demanded.
Everyone in the entire pharmacy turned to stare at him.
“There’s no need to yell at me.”
Carl decided the best thing to do was ignore her. He’d extended a hand of friendship to her once and had come away with a bloody paw. More the fool if he tried it a second time.
“I’d like to talk to you a moment,” she said, sounding all sweet once more. Carl had been buffaloed by her one too many times to be tricked again.
As he recalled, the last time he’d talked to her, he’d ended up wearing a beefsteak as an eye patch. There was nothing she could say that would interest him now.
Ignoring her, Carl made his way to the pharmacy counter. “I’ve come to collect Martha Applegate’s prescription.”
Elvira Buckwald, whose husband served as the pharmacist, rushed to deliver the order. She seemed as eager to get him out of her establishment as he was to go. Carl wasn’t two steps out the door when Candy shouted, “You’re the rudest, most arrogant man I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing.”
“Stupidest, too,” he added, “since you’re keeping tabs.”
“You asked for that black eye, Carl Saks.”
Wonderful. Now the woman had decided to stand in the middle of Main Street and publicly announce that she was the one responsible.
“How dare you think you could win me in a fight!”
Carl groaned. It’d been a joke. Well, it was clear to him the woman didn’t have a sense of humor. He should have picked up on that earlier.
“I…I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she admitted, her voice dropping several decibels. “It was a mistake.”
Carl snickered. “You’re telling me. Getting within a five-mile radius of you is a mistake.” Having said that, he took off down the street, anxious to make his escape.
“Would you kindly stop? I have something I want to say,” she shouted from behind him.
They’d be shoveling snow on the equator first.
Undeterred by his lack of interest, Candy raced ahead of him, then turned to face him, walking backward. “Would you please listen?”
Since they were already attracting a fair amount of attention, Carl stopped. “What?” he asked, and clenched his hands into fists. He was convinced nothing she had to tell him was going to make the least bit of difference. But he knew she was stubborn enough to peck away at him until he did as she asked.
Her shoulders heaved as she caught her breath. The movement was unfortunate because it brought attention to a part of her anatomy he’d rather ignore. Which, despite everything, were probably the finest pair he’d seen on a woman. Okay, so thinking such things would probably be enough to get him arrested. He couldn’t help it.
“I want to apologize,” Candy whispered, her eyes avoiding his.
She announced at the top of her lungs that she was the one responsible for my black eye, Carl mused darkly, then apologized for giving it to him in a voice so low it needed to be dug out of the asphalt. “Okay, you’re sorry. As well you should be,” he said.
Her mouth thinned.
“Oh, so you aren’t sorry?” How like a woman to apologize and not mean a word of it.
“Not about the black eye. You deserved that.”
There was no logic to Candy Hoffman and therefore no reason to talk to her. Shaking his head, Carl sidestepped her and continued down the sidewalk.
He’d gone a half a block or more when she pulled the same trick, jogging ahead of him and then whirling around to face him. “Now what?” he asked icily.
“Please,” she said breathlessly, “just hear me out.”
The frustration was getting to him. “Is this really necessary?”
“Please, Carl, hear me out.”
It wasn’t the please that convinced him, but the soft, sexy way she’d said his name. He decided he must be getting addle-minded in his old age.
“All right. Just hurry up about it, will you? I got better things to do.”
“All right.”
For having made such a big deal about it, she didn’t seem to know what she wanted to say. “It’s about what happened at the dance last week.”
“I already guessed that much.” He tried to look bored, but if the truth be known, he wasn’t opposed to having Candy grovel a little. The way he figured it, she owed him that much.
“I should never have accepted the dance with Derrick in the first place.”
“Amen to that.”
“I…I don’t know why I was so foolish.”
If she hadn’t figured it out, he had. She’d wanted to thwart him, and by heaven, she’d succeeded. He’d be jailed before he let her or anyone else at that dance know, but he’d been madder than blazes when she opted to dance with Showberg over him.
“I knew the minute Derrick got me on the dance floor that I’d made a terrible mistake. Then he started making sexual innuendoes and touching me in places he had no right to touch.”
Carl hadn’t seen that. Showberg had better count his blessings because if he’d seen the ape so much as lay an unwanted finger on Candy, he would have taken delight to dragging the bum outside and beating the snot out of him. Which, as a matter of fact, he had.
Candy rubbed her palms together and appeared to be studying the lines in the sidewalk. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stepped in when you did.”
He shrugged, making light of his contribution.
“I mean it, Carl. I’m more grateful than words can say for your help.” She glanced up nervously. “I feel bad about the black eye—really I do. It’s just that…well…” She hesitated. “We’ve already gone over that.”
“I accept your apology.” All right, all right, he was a sucker for a pretty face, and other body parts. Once he’d given Candy the chance, she’d done a good job of making amends.
“You do?” She sounded shocked.
“I’m not an ogre.”
She stared at him wide-eyed as if seeing him for the first time in her life. When she realized what she was doing, she quickly closed her mouth and thrust out her arm, “Friends?”
He glared at her proffered hand and sighed, knowing full well she would take all wrong what he was about to say. “I don’t mean to offend you, Candy, but I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance that you and I could ever be friends.”
The hurt look that bled into her eyes was painful for Carl to watch. Candy stiffened, withdrew her hand and blinked hard several times.
To his surprise, Carl experienced a curious pain all of his own. He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings, but this way he was doing them both a service. In time she’d thank him.
Lesley let herself into her high-rise condo and left her briefcase and mail in her small office. Slipping out of her heels, she walked into her living room and literally slumped into her favorite chair. The drapes were open, offering her a sweeping view of the Chicago skyline.
Tossing back her head, she released a deep, pent-up sigh. She was exhausted, both mentally and physically.
Her plane was three hours late due to a runway accident at O’Hara. Two passenger planes had collided. There were said to be fatalities, but she couldn’t be sure. The airport itself was a madhouse with emergency vehicles, news reporters and camera crews.
Catching a taxi had been a nightmare.
All Lesley could think about was how pleased she was to be home. Although she loved her job, these business trips had long since lost their appeal. In the beginning they had been fun—even when she was required to fly—but lately, she dreaded every assignment that took her out of town. Plopping her feet on the ottoman, she crossed her ankles and reached for the remote. She was much too keyed up to go to bed, so she might as well catch the ten o’clock news.
Her phone rang with an urgent discordant sound that broke into th
e silence like a buzz saw. Groaning, she was tempted to let the answering machine catch it. After four rings, her machine clicked on, but whoever had called, decided not to leave a message.
A half hour later, while Lesley stood in the shower, letting the pulsating spray revive her, she thought she heard the phone ring again.
When she’d finished, she wrapped herself in a thick terry-cloth robe and walked barefoot into her office to check for messages. The red light blinked at her urgently. But when she checked, all that was there was a series of irritating beeps.
Disgruntled, Lesley moved to her kitchen and poured herself a glass of milk. Leaning back against the kitchen counter, she folded one arm around her middle and stared across the condo.
A sadness settled over her. An empty kind of loneliness. A lump formed in her throat, making it grow thick with the need to cry. Although what she had to weep over, Lesley didn’t know. How anyone could be surrounded by such luxury and feel this miserable, she couldn’t figure out.
A loud peal from the phone startled her. She swallowed a couple of times to help loosen her throat before answering.
“Lesley, thank God.” Whoever was calling was deeply relieved.
She frowned. If she didn’t know better, she’d say it was Zane on the other end of the line.
“I didn’t know what to think. The airlines refused to release the names of the deceased until family had been notified. I’ve pulled every string I know and couldn’t find out a thing.” He sounded frantic.
“Zane?”
“You’re home?”
Lesley nearly laughed at the absurdity of the question. “Of course I’m home.”
“You’re safe?”
“At the moment, I’m more concerned about you.”