Sweet Pretender Page 15

When the phone rang, she considered not answering. But then she had to. It could have been Arlene. It was.

  "Oh, Sis. Am I glad I got you!" The girl sounded breezy and unperturbed by recent disaster. "I've been trying and trying."

  "I haven't gone anywhere except to the market. Maybe I was in the yard."

  Arlene and her new husband were still honeymooning in Connecticut about fifty miles from Sandgate. They'd been sailing every day and were having a wonderful time.

  "Are you all right?" Arlene asked. "You sound funny."

  "Vacation lag," Melissa said. "Have you seen Jeremy?"

  "No. Todd called home and talked to him, though. Why?"

  "No reason." She felt relieved, if a bit puzzled. Why hadn't Jeremy pounced on Arlene the way he'd pounced on her? "He can be difficult. I wouldn't let anything he says spoil things for you."

  The younger girl wasn't listening. She was talking to someone in the background, probably Todd. "I have to run now," she said abruptly. "I'll be coming home on Friday in the late afternoon. Todd will be driving with ma. I wonder—could you have the piano tuned?"

  "I suppose so."

  "And could you spruce things up some? Maybe cut some roses and put them in vases around."

  "I'll do my best."

  "One more thing. It would be fantastic if you could have dinner ready. Something that's good reheated, in case we're delayed. A pot of your scrumptious chili, maybe, and some French bread from the bakery to celebrate."

  "Why don't I hire a six-piece band?" Melissa asked the broken connection as her sister hung up without a proper goodbye.

  Brushing off a feeling of melancholy, she went back to her bedroom and began to gather up the clothing that needed laundering. She had read somewhere that a person's experiences could be likened to pages in a gigantic notebook. Ruined ones could be ripped out and discarded and it would be as if they had never happened. Now the pages of her notebook that had to be tossed away and forgotten included Jeremy as well as Brian.

  Where would she begin? Maybe if she offered a little encouragement to the new outside adjuster in auto claims, who'd been trying to get to know her for weeks, she'd discover they had something in common.

  Then a fleeting memory of the man's Prince Valiant haircut and his snide wink when they met in the elevator made her groan inside. There had to be a less drastic way to keep busy.

  The answer came as she drove past a paint and wallpaper store on her way home from the laundromat later. Arlene had asked if she could spruce things up a bit. So why didn't she?

  The dining room was small and hopelessly dingy. There was no window and the cocoa brown her mother had chosen for the walls only made it appear smaller and dingier. Off-white, not only in the dining room, but in the living room as well, would push the walls back and give the entire house a more inviting look.

  "Are you ever the ambitious one!" Marcia Hanning called as Melissa made trip after trip from car to house with paint, rollers and trays. "Did you buy one of those little sponge thingumajigs that makes it easy to do corners?"

  "No. I figured to do the tricky parts with a brush."

  "Surely you bought one of those long handles that screw into your roller. No? Oh, kid, take it from me. You'll need it to keep from getting a stiff neck." Marcia flung one sunburnt arm up to shield her eyes from the sun. "I have one. Somewhere."

  "Don't bother about it," Melissa told her, backing toward the house. "I'm only doing two rooms."

  "The last time we painted, my son cleaned the brushes. Maybe he knows where—"

  "I don't need anything more. Really."

  "All right." The woman shrugged one shoulder. "If I happen across those things though, I'll trot over with them. Don't forget—cold cream on your face and arms. Then if any paint drips on you, it'll wipe off easy."

  After Melissa had pulled on the baggy jump suit she'd always used for messy jobs and stepped into a pair of out-at-the-toe sneakers, she covered her hair with a clean dust cloth and pinned it securely. Deciding that Marcia, who was an incurable do-it-yourselfer, knew what she was talking about, she dipped her fingers into a jar of cold cream and slathered it thickly on her face, neck and arms.

  To begin with, all went well. The first few strokes previewed the fresher look that white would give the room. She hadn't taken into account, though, the rising heat of the day. The air was uncomfortably thick toward the ceiling, but laden with the smell of paint, it was almost overpowering.

  As Marcia had predicted, her neck began to ache before she'd reached the halfway mark. Would it be worth cleaning up and getting dressed again to go back to the paint store to buy an extension handle?

  As she considered the idea, she grew careless and a splotch of white hit her in the face. A dribble started down her arm and dropped onto her shoe. She sighed and rested for a moment, grateful at least for the cold cream that would make the cleanup easier. "It's unlocked," she called when she heard the knock at the door. Thank goodness. It would be Marcia to the rescue with her painting equipment. She climbed down the ladder, laughing at the bedraggled spectacle she would present. "Come in."

  "No! Don't come in," she cried, nearly kicking the paint can over when she saw Jeremy cross the threshold.

  "Melissa?" he asked quizzically, as if he wasn't quite sure of her identity. He wore a pale yellow knit shirt that made his skin look bronzed, and his eyes very blue, rather than gray.

  "Go away!" She waved him back. "How did you find me?"

  "I had a check made of your license number."

  "And my fingerprints? Were you surprised to find I didn't have a police record?"

  He closed the door behind him and gingerly made his way toward her through the path left between drop cloths. "It'll take two coats," he said, studying the ceiling too intently.

  "And what would you know about painting? You pick up a phone and order a battalion of painters to do the job for you." She was proud of the strength she had mustered in dealing with him and grateful for her numbed feelings. She'd already cried herself out. No more tears were left. She could look at him and feel only a hollow ache. Her inner defense mechanism was in perfect order.

  "May I sit down?"

  "May you sit down?" How ludicrous his politeness seemed after the savagery of their last meeting. "Not if you value your clothes." She indicated the spattered drop cloths with a careless gesture.

  "In the kitchen then?"

  "If you like." She pointed. "It's through that door."

  "You know I meant both of us. I want to talk."

  "I believe you can talk standing up. If I want to finish this afternoon—and I do—I'll have to keep at it."

  He drummed his fingers against his side. "I didn't drive all the way from Sandgate for this."

  "Why did you come?"

  "For one thing, to return this to you." He offered a squarish box that looked as if it had once held jam. When she didn't take it from him, he opened it, reached inside and brought out a snowstorm paperweight. Flurries of white started up inside the glass. He watched her face intently for reaction. "You forgot it."

  "I don't want it."

  "Why not?"

  She averted her eyes. "It would bring back too many ugly memories."

  "And too many good ones?"

  "Darned few!"

  He reached out to her, but she stepped back quickly and held the dripping paint roller in front of her as if it were a spear. "Stay where you are, pal."

  "You've got me covered." Jeremy laughed and raised his hands in token surrender. "If I were planning to take advantage of you, little one, that paint wouldn't stop me."

  A vision of their last night together spun across the screen of her mind. The night he'd stripped her of her defenses and her pride. When she felt her cheeks coloring, she raised her chin and met his eyes in careful defiance. Predictably her heart began its syncopated beat. But she didn't waver.

  "I keep forgetting," she said. "You aren't like the rest of the peasants. If your shirt gets ruined, you can rin
g up the store and order a dozen more to replace it. Can't you?"

  His left eye narrowed, but if he was becoming angry, he managed to keep himself in check. He was a master of self-control by necessity. Who knows how many successful business deals had been made because of his uncanny knack to put on a winning, smiling front when he didn't mean it? "We both know I didn't drive here just to bring you this." He gave the globe a shake and set it on the mound that was the coffee table.

  Melissa took a second look at it. Something had been added. A red-capped child stood beside the house inside the globe. "This isn't mine."

  He grinned sheepishly. "I'd hoped you wouldn't notice. Yours is lost."

  "How did it get lost?"

  "It wasn't one of my better days and—I hurled it against the wall. Since it was my fault, I bought you another."

  "I hope you don't expect me to thank you."

  "I don't know what I expected." He slid a finger almost lovingly along the base of the paperweight and she was struck with a sudden suspicion.

  "You didn't buy this for me."

  "No. It belonged to my grandmother. I wanted you to have it."

  "Then I can't take it. It belongs in your family."

  He brought a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed. Was his neck bothering him again? Or was the gesture one of frustration? "Maybe you do, too."

  She hardly heard him. "Maybe I—what?"

  "Belong in my family."

  "Have you forgotten?" she began, discarding his unlikely suggestion with a toss of her head. "My sister and I are conniving gold diggers, out for what we can get."

  "A man in my position has to consider that."

  "Oh." She twisted her face into an expression of exaggerated sympathy. "Poor little rich boy. So many women chasing you. And only for your money."

  "You aren't going to let up, are you?"

  "You can never be sure a woman loves you for yourself, can you?" she persisted. "Except that I don't buy it. Look at yourself, pal. You aren't exactly Frankenstein's monster. Not on the outside, anyway."

  He grinned. "Thank you. I suppose that's the closest I'll ever get to a compliment from you."

  "I suppose it is." Her heart was beating entirely too fast. She felt light-headed. The anger that had carried her this far was disintegrating. "Will you leave now and allow me to get back to my work?"

  He turned away with a drawn-out sigh, but took only a single step. "It's been hell for me since you left, knowing I drove you away. I wanted to tell you that what's past is past. I'm willing to forget. None of it will ever be mentioned again."

  Outside there was the clatter of metal wheels on the sidewalk. The children down the street were racing on their skateboards again. Melissa concentrated on the sound, counting on its familiarity to pull her to earth and to still the turmoil inside her.

  She wasn't being hypnotized by Jeremy's eyes now. She wasn't being drugged by his lips or manipulated by the mastery of his touch. She was only looking at his back. His shoulders. The way his hair curled slightly at the nape of his neck. Yet she loved him so much, it was torment not to reach for him. Not to cry out that she would eagerly accept whatever terms he offered.

  Until this moment she hadn't considered it possible to be furious with a man and still love that man so terribly at the same time. If Jeremy believed her guilty of treachery—and obviously he still did—their relationship could only be a shallow one. She'd rather not have him at all.

  "That's mighty big of you, Mr. York," she added stiffly. "You're willing to forgive me."

  "Melissa, I'm not very good at this."

  "On the contrary, you're extremely good at it. Except that I didn't do anything to be forgiven for. You began, or rather, your father began paying Natalie when I was a child. Do you imagine I was an accomplice then?"

  "I didn't say—"

  "When I agreed to accompany the others to Sand-gate, I knew nothing about the plot to make you believe Jean was your daughter. She isn't, by the way. Larry Kerr is her father."

  "I know. I located him and saw the real Jean."

  Determined to have it said, Melissa told her story from beginning to end. Once or twice he tried to interrupt, but she raised her voice to cover his.

  "Are you finished?" he asked, when she'd run out of words.

  "Completely."

  He kicked at a corner of drop cloth as he turned back to face her. "I've been trying to tell you. Todd already gave me the facts. Arlene confessed to him and swore him to secrecy the night they met."

  So much for Arlene's ability to keep a secret. Melissa should have known. "And so you believe me?" she asked.

  A smile of relief curved on his lips. "Yes, with all my heart, I do."

  "Because your brother told you." Her tone was accusing.

  "What do you want me to say?" He slapped a hand to his forehead in frustration. "That I love you? You know damned well I do. Through all my worry about how I was going to handle my brother and the girl and even if I could handle what was happening between them, I found myself daydreaming about you incessantly. You've dug yourself so deep into my heart and mind I can't get free of you."

  "But you've tried."

  "Hell, yes. Why shouldn't I? You're the most—" He broke off all at once, realizing that he'd been shouting. "Okay." Painstakingly calm again, he held up both hands, palms toward her. "I want you to put away your paint things. Get changed and let me take you out to dinner. We've never really had any civilized time together. Only moments stolen here and there, colored by circumstances and hacked short by bickering. We've never talked. Really talked."

  Melissa knelt to stir the paint again. How could she explain her feelings to him? How easily he spoke of love. Yet anger and impatience were ready to emerge at any moment. What if the part of him that claimed to want her now were to turn against her tomorrow? It would be shattering to get close to him and have him pull away again.

  "I appreciate your offer," she said, "but as you can see, I'm in the middle of a task I have to finish. I want to get it over and done and the smell of paint gone by the time Arlene and Todd get home."

  "You appreciate my offer?" he repeated dully. "You make it sound like a business deal gone sour. Didn't you hear a word I said?"

  "I heard and I—"

  "You appreciate it." He shook his head as if to clear it. "That's all you have to say?"

  "What more is there?" She remained on her knees, staring into the paint can as though it were a magic cauldron and the act of stirring would make the pain of the moment vanish and Jeremy along with it.

  "Nothing, I suppose. But you can't hang a man for trying." He stood quietly, wanting to give her a chance to change her mind. Then the roar of skateboards on the sidewalk exploded the excruciating stillness. He touched his forehead in a mock salute, "Goodbye, Melissa Brandon."

  It sounded so final. It felt as though she were being ripped in two. Maybe she was wrong. Probably she was weak and foolish. But she couldn't allow him to walk out of her life. Finding a pearl in a lunch counter tuna fish salad would be more likely than finding another Jeremy.

  "You haven't even suggested the obvious solution to the dilemma," she said. "If you were to help me, we could get the job done in half the time."

  "You want to put me to work?" The half smile she'd once considered so maddeningly arrogant seemed anything but maddening now.

  "Unless you don't think you can handle it."

  He drummed an index finger against his chin in the manner of a corporate head pondering a weighty decision. "I can handle it. The question is, what do I get in return for my labor?"

  Her heart began its crazed thudding again. "We'll talk about that later."

  "You know a York doesn't do business that way." He came closer. "I want to talk about it now."

  As she gazed up at him with moist eyes, she had to wage a terrific battle to keep from flinging herself into his arms. "There are some work clothes that belonged to my father on a hook just inside the utility closet on the ser
vice porch. They may be a bit—"

  His lips descended on hers, silencing them, as he pulled her against him.

  "You'll get paint on your clothes," she murmured against his mouth between ravenous kisses.

  "Forget the work clothes," he said brokenly. "We won't need them."

  "But your shirt and…"

  "I won't wear the shirt either."

  "But…"

  A glint crept into his eyes. "The efficiency expert in me has a great idea. Why wear clothes at all?"

  She laughed, imagining Marcia bursting in to find the two of them merrily painting in the altogether. "Silly!"

  "Did I say something funny?" Jeremy tried to look innocent.

  "No. Just impractical."

  "What could be more practical? Think of the laundry we'd save."

  "Think of the time we'd have, scrubbing up afterwards," she countered.

  "I am. That, lady, is where the fun comes in."

  "Forget it, pal." She touched a clenched fist to his jaw in mock anger.

  He kissed it. "Killjoy."

  He tried for her lips again, and she drew back. "Jeremy, be careful. I have paint and—" His mouth took hers with growing hunger, and every muscle in her body seemed to go slack. "And cold cream all over my face," she finished weakly, allowing her eyes to close.

  "That makes two of us."

  Something told her that the painting had already progressed as far as it would that day. And maybe the next. With a sigh of supreme contentment, she slid her arms around his neck and if he hadn't lifted her off her feet and carried her, she would have floated skyward.