Любовница поневоле. Марина Эльденберт
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in a quick shrug. “You reporters are all alike. You have to know everything. It’s a wonder you don’t walk up to the man and interrogate him.”
“Can you see anybody intimidating that big guy?”
“Yeah. You might not try to browbeat him, but you’d dig into his business just to talk to him. He’s your type.”
“My type?”
“Sure he is. You like a man who’s four or five inches taller than your five feet nine, and you could really luxuriate and feel tiny with this guy. He must be near six feet six. Of course, I’m just guessing; he’s always sitting down.”
“Yeah, he is,” Allison replied, bemused. He’d already taken his seat when the lights went up and remained sitting after they went down, while other band members walked in and out in full view of the audience. She could only conclude that he had a disability. Maybe he couldn’t walk. She dismissed the matter with a shrug. It was of no import. A jazz musician would be the last man who’d interest her.
She put on her Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong CDs as soon as she got home and sang along with them while she sorted out her clothes for the tour. With gentle strokes, her fingers brushed the once-yellow leather rose that had long since turned brown from her loving caresses. Half a dozen times, she’d thrown it into the wastebasket, only to retrieve it and return it to her little collection of treasures—the green quilted silk box in which she kept her first bra, the lace handkerchief she’d carried to her freshman high school prom, the empty perfume bottle that had held the first gift she received from a man. The yellow rose had nestled in the elegant bow on the box in which the perfume had been wrapped. Edna Wakefield hadn’t approved of a deliveryman for her daughter, and she’d let him go. But unlike opportunistic Roland Farr—her betrayer—that man had loved her, she now knew.
What of Mac Connelly? She couldn’t get him out of her mind. Tonight, she’d sensed in him a peculiarly erotic aura that she hadn’t detected the many other nights she’d seen him play. As she watched his fingers tease those strings, an unfamiliar heat had pulsated in her. A laugh rumbled in her throat. First Jacob Covington had poleaxed her, and now this. No doubt about it; she was a late bloomer.
* * *
Early Sunday afternoon, two days later, as Allison stepped out of her Jacuzzi, she heard Covington’s voice on her answering machine, interrupted it, and took the call.
“Don’t forget that our flight leaves at eight tomorrow morning, Allison. We might as well use first names. I’m called Jake. As I was saying, please be on time. I have a ten o’clock appointment, and I don’t want to miss that plane.”
As soon as her heartbeat returned to normal, she summoned her most professional demeanor. “Mr. Covington, I’m assuming that you don’t make these statements because you want to rile me, but because you’re deficient in the art of conversation. I will be on time, dear, and I will wash behind my ears before I leave home.” His uproarious laughter cooled her temper, and she vowed not to react negatively to every one of his incautious remarks.
“Did anybody ever try to blunt that sharp tongue of yours?”
“Now, you...” she began, remembered her counsel of seconds earlier, and stopped. “Jake, do you think we automatically rub each other the wrong way?”
That deep, dark, sexy laugh again. “I think we rub each other, but I’d be the last one to suggest it’s the wrong way. Rubbing with you gives me a good feeling.”
“Well, it irritates me,” she huffed.
“In what way? I’d be happy to soothe whatever I irritate. Just let me know what I’ve...uh...inflamed, and I’ll gladly cool it off.” His laugher caressed her. Warmed her. If she didn’t watch out, she could find herself enamored of... Was she out of her mind?
“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that you can keep your thoughts to yourself.”
“It has, but doing that wouldn’t be fun.”
She could imagine that a grin covered his face. “You’re not going to tease me into letting you trap me with innuendos. I’m onto you. Aren’t you ever serious?”
“I’m always serious,” he shot back, “but I’m not a rash man. If I told you in plain English what’s on my mind, I could damage our relationship. I don’t want that.”
She wondered if her nerves would riot. After that comment, he might as well dump it out, but she refrained from saying it. “Thanks for being circumspect,” she replied instead, and she did appreciate it. “Having to suffer my boss’s coarseness is a big enough price for getting ahead in this business.”
“I can well imagine that. See you at eight in the morning.” As though he’d received an unpleasant reminder, his manner changed when she mentioned Bill Jenkins. Who could blame him? She told him goodbye, dressed quickly, and made her way to Mother’s Rest.
* * *
Allison took Leda from the nurse, looked into the child’s sad face, and told herself that, if she were ever fortunate enough to have one of her own, she’d love it so much that it would bubble with joy all the time.
“Leda,” she cooed to the solemn little girl, “smile for me.” She sang “Summertime” and was rewarded with the baby’s rapt attention. She cuddled Leda to her breast and paced the colorful, well-lighted room, singing as she did so. Leda quickly learned that a smile brought another chorus and, when the two hours had passed, Allison surmised that she had sung the famous song well over a dozen times. The nurses let her stay beyond the allotted two hours because the child fretted when she attempted to leave. Finally she managed to sing her to sleep, but for the first time, pangs of separation after leaving one of the children tore at her, and she vowed to have some of her own. But when?
She got home, saw the house’s dark windows, and realized she’d forgotten to set her automatic timer. She searched for the small flashlight that she always carried in her pocketbook, found it, and opened the door.
After sleeping fitfully that night, she arose before daylight, dressed in leisure, and stood leaning against the check-in counter for the Delta Air Lines Washington to New York flight when Jake Covington got there. Captivated, she watched him approach her, his gait loose and his stride lazy. Suggestive. He walked up to her and grinned. Then he winked. Unaccustomed to a promiscuous onslaught of desire for a man, she had to battle the frissons of heat that swirled within her, unsettling her. Six weeks of him could be her undoing.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, replacing the smile with a look of genuine concern.
She wasn’t so foolish as to tell him what seeing him had done to her. She turned to the ticket agent and handed him her credit card. “New York. One way, please.”
* * *
They took their seats in business class, and Allison immediately opened a newspaper, but Jake couldn’t resist closing the paper and relaxed when her inquiring look bore no censorship.
“I want us to get along well, Allison,” he began. “I grew up in a peaceful, loving family, and I’ve accepted that as the kind of life I need. I do not allow myself to spend a lot of time with contentious people. If you can’t stand my company, I’d rather we called this off before the plane leaves the gate.”
“I’m a little unsettled. It’ll pass over, I hope. In any case, Jake, contentiousness is not part of my disposition, so if that’s what you detect, you probably precipitated it.”
He ignored the remark. “What happened to you back there?” Whatever it was, it had plowed right through him. Oddly, he didn’t expect an explanation, because the incident had the appearance of spontaneity, a phenomenon unto itself and of its own power, so her answer held no surprise.
“I wish I knew. Don’t worry, though; I’m fine.”
He let his hand touch the side of hers; he couldn’t help it. Something in her called out to him, sparked a need in him,