A Purrfect Romance (7 page)

“Of course I have a heart, Bridey.” He looked befuddled. “And I love all animals, great and small. But I already have Scout, and I’m not going to ask him to share his space with a couple of felines. He might object.”

By now she was getting mad. And madder still, every moment. Her own stubbornness had been aroused by Mack’s air of unqualified self-assurance.

“Well, it’s not his space yet. And it’s not your space either. And you know what? This space is getting too small for me.” She glanced around the quiet room. “I would like to go home now.”

“But you haven’t had your dessert.” He looked dismayed. “At least have some coffee.”

“I don’t want any coffee.” She stood up. “And I don’t want any dessert.” She had her bag in her hand and was already headed for the door.

Mack practically knocked over his chair, digging in his pocket for some cash and signaling the waiter to bring the check. She was out of the door by the time he’d tossed some bills onto the table. By the time he’d retrieved their coats and his umbrella from the checkroom, he had to run to catch up with her.

“Now, dammit, Bridey,” he said, reaching her side as she strode down Hudson Street, looking for a cab. He was trying to assert the control he was so accustomed to. “Now, dammit, I won’t allow you to go off mad.”

“You won’t
allow
me?”

She turned to flash an outraged glance at him.

“I didn’t mean that.” He said it quickly, awkwardly, like a man stumbling over his own feet. “I only meant I wanted this to be a nice dinner. I wanted us to get to know each other. I only wanted to explain about—”

A cab pulled up and he grabbed the door, holding it for her.

“Oh, just go away!” She was practically snarling.

She yanked her coat out of his hands, got into the cab and pulled the door closed behind her before he could join her. She flounced back against the seat and folded her arms indignantly across her chest.

“Six Twelve Park,” she snapped at the driver.

And then she was silent.

And Mack, left alone in the middle of Hudson Street, with the cars weaving around him, threw his hands into the air and spoke to no one in particular. “What did I do? What’s she so mad about?”

He really didn’t get it.

Was it a guy thing?

B
ridey needed to calm down and regroup. Slamming the door behind her, slapping her bag angrily onto a chair, glowering fiercely at the hall mirror as she passed it; none of that helped. Anger had been overtaken by anxiety. She kicked off her shoes, plunked herself deep into the pillows of the pale silk sofa and pulled her feet up under her. Silk and Satin jumped up next to her, and she gathered them close for comfort.

“What will I do?” she whispered into Silk’s ear. “If I lose this place, I’ll have to start all over again. I’ll have to find another apartment, go back to a restaurant job, postpone everything while I save my money again. Oh, Silk, everything seemed so perfect.”

The telephone’s ring interrupted her.

As usual, Marge didn’t wait for any greeting. “Can we talk? Are you alone?”

“Of course I’m alone, Marge. What did you expect?”

“Oh, something romantic, I guess. How did your dinner with your uptight friend turn out?”

“Just awful, Marge. Worse than awful. And Mack Brewster is no friend of mine. Just wait till you hear.” She told the whole dreadful story while Marge murmured little gasps of surprise, sympathy and support. “If that man manages to get me out of this apartment, I’m in real trouble. I don’t know what I’ll do.”

“You know you’re welcome to stay with me.”

“You’re sweet, Marge, but that doesn’t solve my problem. Or the cats’ problem, either. But thanks anyway.”

“But it’s so sad,” Marge said, “the way he turned from hero to wicked villain just like that.”

“He was never a hero, Marge, just a good-looking guy who happens to live next door . . . and who also happens to be planning to put me out of house and home. But now at least I understand why he glared at me that first day, like he had something against me before we’d even met. He did have something against me. I was in his way; I was trouble, a nuisance in the way of his plans.” With each word Bridey was making herself madder. “I was just an inconvenient hurdle he needed to jump over. He only took me out to dinner tonight so he could tell me he was planning to get rid of me.”

“Wow, that was real big of him.”

“Wasn’t it, though?” Bridey said sarcastically. By now she was really furious.

“Anyway, did you find out?”

“Did I find out what?”

“Did you learn anything more about him? What’s his business . . . what is he, a lawyer, a politician, an interior decorator? Is he living off a big inheritance? Maybe a playboy with a trust fund? He’s got to be well fixed if he’s got an apartment in that building.”

“I have no idea. It never came up, and I didn’t think to ask. I had other things on my mind. But I’m pretty sure he’s not a decorator,” she said with a little laugh. “There’s nothing at all artsy about him. I can’t imagine him fussing over a bolt of paisley print. Anyway, I can’t worry about that now, Marge. I don’t care if he’s a tinker, tailor, soldier or spy. For me, he’s just trouble. I’m going to have to work at top speed from here on, and right now I have eight cakes to check and a day’s worth of notes to write up.”

“Well, keep me posted. I gotta go now, too. Gotta get my beauty sleep.”

They said good-bye, but Bridey didn’t head for the kitchen right away. Instead, she remained curled up in the corner of the sofa, stroking Silk’s back. There was something deep inside her heart that was stabbing at her painfully, a confusion of anger and anxiety, along with a persistent memory of Mack’s voice, his smile, a sense of his authority that wrapped itself protectively around her.

It made no sense. It made no sense at all.

She let her fingertips feel the reassuring, sensual pleasure of Satin’s responsive movement under her hand as the cat snuggled warmly up against her, purring softly.

Bridey imagined having to leave this wonderful apartment and suddenly realized that in the short time she’d lived here, it had become more than just a wonderful opportunity; she had come to love it for its beauty, its elegance and perfection of taste, for its gracious comfort. Without knowing it, she had allowed it to become her home. Her eyes wandered around the room, as though she needed to store up in her memory each beautiful thing here, the glow of the lamplight on the fine old woods, the silver and crystal objects that decorated the room, the silk upholsteries, the Persian carpets.

And then, and not for the first time, her gaze rested on the portrait of Henrietta Willey that hung above the fireplace. There was something about the portrait that had drawn her, irresistibly, from her first day there, as though it held some special message for her, something loving and magical. The picture had been painted long ago, when Henrietta hadn’t been much older than Bridey herself was now, and in its vibrant, amused expression Bridey could see no resemblance at all to the irascible and reclusive old woman Henrietta had become. The girl in the portrait wore a gown of sea-foam green satin that billowed luxuriously about her, showing off the slim grace of her lithe figure, with a filmy lace stole draped casually off her white shoulders, her long, slim fingers clasping it loosely before her. A cloud of glowing, tawny-blonde hair surrounded her dramatic face, and her expression radiated a lively and gregarious energy and a warmth that invited intimacy. What turn in Henrietta’s life could have soured her into the mean-spirited, isolated woman she’d become?

Even so, I think I would have liked to have known her.

The room was dark beyond the single light next to the sofa, and outside lights sparkled from thousands of windows. They reminded her that there were countless individuals out there, each with their own concerns, each of them unconnected to the other, each untouched by her problems.

She went toward the kitchen, turning on the lights in each room as she passed through.

Two hours later, after recording the results of her day’s work, she was finally ready for bed. It was time to put aside her worries, at least until the morning, and she decided she badly needed some pampering. She logged off her computer and put it to bed for the night.

“A hot bath,” she said to the cats, who were settling into their beds. “A long, bubbly soak in the tub, just the thing to make me forget Mack Brewster and the ASPCA. That and a glass of warm milk.”

But despite a long, relaxing soak in the bubble-filled bathtub, and despite a lavish, all-over application of lotions, the man next door remained on her mind. Even as she snuggled into bed with a magazine and her glass of warm milk, she couldn’t forget him. Her feelings were more complicated than she could understand. Sure, Mack was the heavy in this piece, but still . . . what was it? A feeling of loss that had nothing to do with eighteen rooms and free rent and a fabulous kitchen. What was it about him—was it only his intelligent face, his secure masculinity, his confident, self-assured bearing—she remembered the way the candlelight from the table had softened the rugged planes of his handsome face and added a depth to the texture of his black hair, the way his dark eyes looked into her own . . .

She slammed shut the door on the image.

She turned the pages of her magazine. But her eyes took in nothing of what was on them.

Finally she gave up trying to read. She finished her milk, turned out the light and burrowed her head into the pile of pillows. And in the dark, she realized that Mack Brewster was in the apartment next door, only a few feet away from her.

He, too, she thought, must be in his bed, sleeping nearby, separated from her by only a wall. She wondered what his bedroom looked like. She wondered what he wore to bed—probably an old-fashioned nightshirt, she thought, making herself laugh by adding a floppy nightcap to the image—she wondered if he also drank warm milk before going to sleep, or if he said his prayers, or if perhaps he was thinking of her . . .

She sat up abruptly, grabbed a pillow and threw it hard at the wall opposite her.

“Damn that man!”

Then she slumped down under the covers.

“Damn that man,” she whispered into the dark.

But Mack was not in his bed. For the last hour he’d been sitting in a deck chair on the terrace of his apartment. With Scout sprawled beside him, their two forms concealed by the night, he’d been watching the lights in the windows of apartment 12A. He knew when Bridey finished working in the kitchen and turned out the light, and he could see her shadow behind the drawn curtains of the bedroom windows as she moved about inside, getting ready for bed.

He wasn’t spying on her.

He just couldn’t get her off his mind.

I
t was a cool Monday morning, and Gerald Kinski was just getting out of his topcoat when the intercom on his desk buzzed.

“It’s Miss Berrigan on one, Mr. Kinski.”

He hit the speaker button.

“Morning, Bridey. What’s up?”

He tossed his coat onto the leather sofa, settled into his chair and picked up the receiver. While he talked, he fingered through the stack of weekend mail that was waiting for him on his desk. He frowned as he picked one envelope out of the pile and read the return address. Could this be the reason for her call?

“Would you have a couple of minutes for me to come by this morning?” Bridey was saying. “I need to talk to you.”

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“Maybe,” she said. “Would ten o’clock be all right?”

He glanced at his watch. “Sure, Bridey. I’ll be able to fit you in at ten.”

“Thanks, Mr. Kinski. I’ll be there in an hour.”

He waited for the dial tone and then rang his secretary.

“Cynthia, Bridey Berrigan will be in at ten. Give us about thirty minutes. And would you ring Harold Maudsley for me?” He looked at the paper in his hand and read off the phone number to her from the letterhead. “He’s on the Six Twelve Park Avenue co-op board.”

“So, Bridey, what can I do for you?”

Gerry settled back into the depths of his chair and smiled at her.
She is such a treat,
he was thinking.
She brings the springtime in with her.

Her miniskirt was pale green and dotted with tiny yellow buttercups, and her cropped yellow blouse had a row of little buttons marching down the front. She made him think of a spring flower, just opening up to summer’s sunshine. She carried a darker green jacket and laid that over the arm of her chair.

“Well, Mr. Kinski, I’m not sure how to say this, but I think I have a problem.”

“Yes, you said that when you called. Everything’s okay with the cats, I hope.”

“Oh, sure,” she said nervously. For a moment she thought of confessing to him about Silk’s little adventure at the fish market but decided she’d better not say anything about that. “Silk and Satin are just fine. We’re getting along great. No, it’s about the apartment.”

Gerry nodded his head.

“I know you didn’t make any promises, but I did hope to stay long enough to finish my project. But now something’s come up. I’m worried that this job isn’t going to last much longer. If you can tell me anything, I need to know, because it’s really important to me to be able to finish my work.”

Damn
, he thought.
News sure travels fast.

“What have you heard?” he asked.

“I met one of my neighbors,” she said. “Mr. Brewster.”

She meant to say no more than was absolutely necessary, so she left out the part about their meeting in the park, their aborted dinner date and his arrogant assumption of his own rectitude—and how his black hair fell in soft waves at the back of his neck, just clearing the top of his shirt collar, and how surprisingly sexy and masculine a man could look in a conservative suit and a casual raincoat . . .

All of that was racing helter-skelter through her head, but she made herself focus on her reason for being there.

“Is it true?” she asked coolly, giving no hint of her distress. “Is the co-op board going to contest the will? Can they do that?”

“Well, it would be unusual, but it looks like they might try.” Gerry picked up the paper from his desk and scanned the list of board members’ names printed on the letterhead. There it was: Mackenzie Haven Brewster. “How do you know Mr. Brewster?”

“Oh, Mack lives in Twelve B,” she said, making it sound casual. “We just happened to meet in the hall.”

“Mack?”

“Mr. Brewster, I mean.” She felt the flush rising in her cheeks and cursed the fair complexion that had always been such a dead giveaway. She rushed on with her explanation. “He told me he’s been planning for a long time to buy the Willey apartment—”

“All that in the hallway?”

“Well, uh . . .” She came to a stammering stop.

Gerry smiled slightly. He had seen the bright color rising in her cheeks and heard her nervous stammer.

So
, he thought.
The plot thickens.

He kept that thought to himself.

“This just came in the mail,” he said, heading her off. He waved the letter in his hand. “The board is notifying me that they do indeed intend to challenge that portion of the will that concerns the apartment. They say that the passing of the property to anyone other than a family member is contrary to the co-op rules.” He saw her face go pale again and wished the board had been a little slower about coming to their decision. Brewster must be pushing them. Maybe he’d already made an offer on the apartment. “I’m sorry, Bridey, but it looks like we may have a fight on our hands. I’d like to see you stay there as long as you want. And our firm had hoped for as little publicity as possible—”

He cut himself short. The whole matter had been embarrassing right from the beginning and he certainly wasn’t prepared to reveal his own foolishness to anyone outside the firm. Increasingly, as he got older, there were days—and it looked like this was turning into one of them—when he wished he could retire to his place in the country, maybe take up some sort of soothing hobby. Wood carving might be nice . . .

“Mr. Brewster says he wants to break through and take over the whole floor.”

He told her all that
, Gerry thought
, just chatting in the hallway?

“And what’s more, he’s planning to just turn the cats out. He’d send poor Silk and Satin to the ASPCA or something—”

That must have been some conversation. She practically got the man’s life story.

“—as though Scout deserves to be in that apartment more than they do.”

“Scout?”

“His dog. His black Labrador retriever.”

Gerry thought this all over for a long moment. Then he asked, “What more do you know about this Mack Brewster? What’s his business?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sounds like we ought to find out.” Gerry wondered why she’d missed out on that.

“Does it matter?”

“You never know. I’ll check it out and let you know if it’s important.” He made a few notes on a yellow pad. “In the meantime, you should just go on home, Bridey, and continue your cooking and writing. These legal proceedings take time, and if there’s one thing we lawyers know how to do, it’s how to slow things down. Nothing’s going to happen for a little while, anyway, and we’ll drag it out as much as we can. See if we can’t stall things enough so you can finish your book. You just go on home and continue as you were.”

He came around to her chair and handed her the green jacket as she rose.

“And everything’s okay with Silk and Satin?” he asked as he walked her to the reception area.

“Oh, sure. They’re just fine. No problem.”

“Good. We want them to enjoy every one of their nine lives.” As they shook hands at the door, he said, “How long do cats live, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty years?”

The door closed behind her.

Good. I’ll be safely retired by then.

Gerald Kinski was not alone in dreaming of an escape into retirement. A few blocks away, in the offices of Harmon & Brewster, Helen Goodman was fuming. She yanked the chair back from her desk.

“I’ve been that man’s executive secretary for three years,” she said, slapping down a folder full of papers, “and for his father for thirty years before that, and no one’s ever spoken to me that way before! Maybe I’m just getting too old for this job.” She pulled a tissue out of the box in her bottom drawer and blew her nose loudly. “If he doesn’t want me around anymore, maybe it’s time for me to take my pension and get out of here.”

“Oh, Helen. Everyone knows this place couldn’t run without you.”

Janet Warensky had just popped into Helen’s office for her regular 10
A.M
. coffee break. She’d brought two mugs with her, just filled from the brewer in the kitchenette down the hall, and she set Helen’s in its usual spot, next to the African violets that always bloomed on Helen’s desk.

In her many years as Harmon & Brewster’s marketing manager, Janet had seen all sorts of crises come and go, but she’d never known her friend to be in such a state.

“Mr. Brewster’s always so even-tempered,” she said. “What happened?”

Helen was too upset to even hear the question.

“I’ve known that boy since he was in diapers.” She blew her nose again. “I remember when his mother used to bring him in here when he was just a baby. He used to play around everyone’s feet, pushing his toy cars across the carpet. He was Scooter back then, not Mr. Brewster. Why, I still have the birthday cards he used to draw for me. How could he talk to me like that?”

“Like what? What did he say?”

“I’d left these letters on his desk for his signature.” She pointed at the folder. “He barely looked at them and he just threw them back at me, right across his desk.” She mimicked Mack’s deep voice sarcastically. “ ‘These are a mess,’ he said. He practically barked at me. ‘What’s the matter with you, Helen?’ he said. ‘Can’t you do anything right?’ ”

“Mr. Brewster said that? To you? Why, Helen, your work is so meticulous. And it’s so unlike him to talk that way. He’s always so polite and correct.”

“And then he said, ‘Just take these and get out of here! Just get the hell out of here and leave me alone!’ Well,” she went on indignantly, “no one talks to me that way! I’ve a good mind to hand in my resignation this minute.”

“Oh, don’t do that, Helen. I can hardly believe it of Mr. Brewster. Something must be bothering him. Maybe it’s a girl. Maybe he’s been seeing someone and he got dumped.”

“There isn’t any girl. I’d know about it if there were a girl. He’d be sending flowers and things. Remember when he thought he was in love with that Tiffany Glover? That snobby young lawyer from Baines and Dunster? Remember how he was on the phone to her every couple of hours? But he never acted like this when they broke up. Oh, sure, he moped around for a couple of days, but—”

The door behind her opened and Mack was there.

“Helen, could you come in here, please?” he said sharply.

She wiped her eyes, squared her narrow shoulders and got up.

“Of course, Mr. Brewster,” she said, as coldly as she could. He held the door for her as she went into his book-lined office.

“Please sit down, Helen.”

She did.

He pushed aside a tall stack of papers and sat on the corner of his desk, facing her.

“My behavior was inexcusable, Helen,” he said rather stiffly. “I’m very sorry. I should never have spoken to you that way. I’m just not myself today.”

“Well, Mr. Brewster . . .” She noticed that his tie was slightly off center and one button on the collar of his button-down shirt was undone. No, he certainly wasn’t himself today. As though in confirmation, Mack looked down at his tasseled loafers and frowned, as if he was seeing them for the first time that morning. Casual brown shoes with a dark gray business suit. Whoever he was today, he was definitely not himself.

“Please accept my apology,” he was saying. “It has nothing to do with you, Helen. Your work is always excellent.”

“Thank you, Mr. Brewster. I try to do my best.”

“I know you do, Helen, and Harmon and Brewster couldn’t get along without you.
I
couldn’t get along without you.”

Maybe
,
she thought, she wouldn’t retire just yet after all. She stood up to go.

“You can bring those letters back, Helen,” he continued, “and I’ll sign them. Just check the spelling of Colin Balfoure’s name. I think he spells it with an
e
at the end.”

“Yes, Mr. Brewster.” She was feeling much better now. Mack was still glowering, but at least not at her.

“And then get me Harold Maudsley on the phone, at the co-op board. You have the number?”

“It’s on my Rolodex.”

As she reached the door, he added, “And Helen, after you do that, would you send a dozen roses to Miss Bridget Berrigan, at Six Twelve Park. Apartment Twelve A.”

Oh!
She felt triumphant.
So it is a girl, after all!

“No, wait. On second thought,” he said, “not roses. Roses are too formal. Tell them to make up a big arrangement of spring flowers: freesias, daffodils, that kind of thing.”

Oh, boy! Here we go again
. “Yes, Mr. Brewster. And will you want to enclose a card?”

“Oh, that’s right. A card.” He pinched his lower lip thoughtfully and then said, “I’ll write it out for you and you can read it to them when you call in the order.”

She waited while he scrawled his message on a memo pad. After a moment’s thought and a couple of false starts, he handed her the note and she closed the door behind her.

She took it to her desk, where Janet was waiting expectantly.

“So,” Janet said, “did he fire you? Or has the storm passed?”

Helen finished reading the note and handed it to Janet.