Anything You Can Do (20 page)

"That surely is a nice little skirt," he told her, molding his hands to her hips. Soft leather covering firm flesh. He squirmed on the barstool. The snug jeans were becoming painfully tight.

"I borrowed it from my roommate," she replied, running her hands over his hands, over the skirt, down her smooth thighs. "Do you think it's too short?"

"I wouldn't mind if it was a few inches shorter or
—" he drew a finger across her bare midriff— "a whole lot lower."

She retrieved her drink, sipped, then slowly licked her lips.

The jukebox kicked into a country song, and Austin's eyes narrowed. This was his chance to find out if she'd lied to him that evening at Reilly's when she'd told him she couldn't dance.

With an effort of will, he withdrew his hands from her hips.

"Why don't we do a little boot-scooting, darlin'?" he asked casually.

She reached over to trail her fingers down his neck, then began toying with the top snap on his shirt. "I'm afraid that's not one of the accomplishments in my repertoire," she purred, and undid the snap. "But maybe you could teach me."

The dance floor was about the size of a first-year associate's office, but it didn't matter. Bailey had told the truth about her dancing abilities. She fell all over herself and him, too. Laughing hysterically, they stopped after only a few steps, and with a smoldering look, Austin pulled her tight against him and began to dance in place. She managed to follow that action nicely, swaying her leather-covered hips against his.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Austin remembered this was all an act and had some sort of purpose, but he couldn't remember what, nor did he care. All he cared about was Bailey
—Bailey's sleek body that fit so nicely against his, her faint, spicy scent, her ragged breathing that told him she wanted him too. He needed to be a part of her again, to be united completely, to race together to the ultimate peak the way they had that night in Gordon's yard.

He scanned the room desperately. The jukebox was too small and close to the wall for the two of them to hide behind.

"Bailey, sweetheart," he groaned into her ear, his hands caressing her rounded buttocks, "let's go to my apartment."

She sighed and snuggled closer, and he heard himself moan.

Then she shoved him away, her eyes spitting green fire. "You knew!"

"What? What's the matter?" Austin struggled to clear the fog from his senses and fathom what was happening.

"You called me 'Bailey,' moron. I never told you my name. You knew all along, you scheming, conniving creep! You come in here in that absurd disguise and—and come on to me, and you knew it was me!" She strode angrily toward the door.

Austin followed her outside, then grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him. "Of course I knew it was you. Do you think I'd want to make love with some bimbo from a bar? You, on the other hand, seemed awfully willing to carry on with a man you'd never met!"

Bailey jerked her arm free and glared at him, her eyes deep and dangerous. "Cretin. I hate to destroy your illusions, but I recognized you the second you walked in the bar. And let's be completely clear about one thing. I wasn't carrying on with you. I was just—"

"What?" he asked, enjoying her sudden discomfort. "You were just what?" He grasped both her arms in case she decided to punch him, and for a brief instant, she seemed to relax. He leaned toward her, his lips parting automatically.

But she jerked free of his hold and whirled away from him. He watched her run across the parking lot toward her car, stumbling in the heels, but nevertheless presenting a most intriguing spectacle in her leather skirt.

As she drove away, he leaned against somebody's car, pulled off the hat and glasses, and considered what Bailey had just said. Setting aside the insults, she had known who he was and had flirted with him outrageously, had made it very obvious that she wanted him. Maybe she'd thought herself disguised, but her emotions had been unmasked and open. Twirling the glasses, he smiled into the night.

"Hey, aren't you that lawyer?"

Austin looked up to see Candy Miller approaching wearing a spandex miniskirt. Everyone but Bailey, he thought, should be prohibited from wearing clothes like that.

"Yes," he answered Candy. "I'm a lawyer." Then, as he came back to earth and reality, he ground his teeth.

"See you inside, honey!" she called, opening the noisy door.

"Damn!" he cursed, throwing his hat to the ground. "Damn, damn, damn!" Bailey had done it again! There was no point in following Candy into the bar if she knew who he was.

He kicked the hat all the way back to his car.

*~*~*

Bailey slammed the front door behind her, threw the wig onto the dining room table, kicked her shoes across the room, turned, and kicked the wall. Samantha scu
ttled into the room, then tucked her tail and started to scuttle away again until Bailey held out her arms.

''I'm going to kill him," she swore, cuddling the little dog against her face. "I will kill that man in front of a dozen witnesses, and no jury in the world will convict me."

"What are you raving about?"

Bailey whirled around to see
Paula standing in her bedroom doorway, wearing a nightgown and yawning.

"What are you doing home?" Bailey asked, the
n blushed as the implications of the situation dawned on her. "Oh! I didn't realize—I thought—I'm just going to bed. Don't mind me." She grabbed the wig off the table and began scouting around for the shoes.

"The reason I'm here is because I got stood up. Now, what are you looking for and why are you acting so weird?"
Paula asked, coming over to join the search.

Bailey straightened. "Stood up? You mean Gordon isn't
—?" She waved a hand in the general direction of Paula's bedroom.

Paula
flopped onto the sofa. "No, he isn't. I neither know nor care where Gordon is. And judging from your rantings, I'd guess your evening wasn't much better than mine."

"I can't believe Gordon stood you up. There must be some mistake." Bailey sank onto the sofa beside her friend, and Samantha curled into a ball between them. The extravagant floral arrangement was conspicuously absent from the coffee table
where it had been earlier in the evening. "Where—?"

"I snipped off all the flowers and put the stems on his doorstep."

"No, you didn't."

"
No, I didn’t. They're in your room," Paula confessed with a shrug. "They became suddenly offensive. Set off my hay fever."

"I'm sure there's a logical explanation," Bailey persisted.

"Right. I probably misunderstood the terms. I missed the part where he said we were going to have this date at separate places. In any event, he didn't show, which shouldn't come as a surprise to those of us familiar with the morals of lawyers. Male lawyers, I mean."

"Well, it
does
come as a surprise. That's not like Gordon. All the things we've done together, he's never let me down. You know how he even showed up for that race when he didn't want to." She shook her head. "No, there's more to the story."

"Right. We'll probably read in the morning paper about how he was kidnapped and held for ransom or spent the night on an alien spaceship."
Paula stretched her arm over the back of the sofa and laid her head on it.

"Did you call his house?"

"I tried," Paula admitted. "The first time, it rang, then it sounded like somebody lifted the receiver, but nobody said anything, just a lot of static. After that, all I got was a busy signal. The operator said there was trouble on the line. As in the phone being off the hook, for example."

"Let's go over to his house."

"I will not!" Paula protested, sitting bolt-upright. "And you won't, either. Leave me a little dignity."

Bailey threw her hands into the air. "Gordon could be lying over there dead, and you're worried about your dignity!"

"It seems to me you're being unusually dramatic about this whole thing, possibly to avoid talking about your evening and this man you're going to kill."

Bailey cringed as the remark struck home. She was concerned about Gordon, but the whole truth was, she found his behavior easier to think about than her own
. "Austin came to the bar," she said.

"Go on,"
Paula encouraged, settling comfortably into one corner of the sofa, facing Bailey.

"If you insist on leering like that, I won't tell you a thing. Not that there's anything to tell." Bailey folded her arms over her chest, then quickly unfolded them as she touched her bare midriff and remembered the way Austin had touched her.

"I can tell by the look on your face that this is going to be good," Paula said. "Want me to make some hot chocolate?"

"No!" She wasn't about to confess to the way she'd lost control, practically made love with Austin on the dance floor. "All that happened was, Austin came into the bar wearing this ridiculous cowboy outfit. I recognized him at once, of course, and went over to try to divert his attention so he wouldn't find out what I found out." Suddenly it hit her that she hadn't thought about her recently acquired information since Austin's appearance. His ability to distract her from the important aspects of her life was really frustrating.

She ran a hand through her hair, still sweat-damp from wearing the stupid wig. "I found out that Candy is probably a fraud. She's been involved in another personal injury suit with another man, and she’s hanging around with Alvin Wilson but doesn’t want anybody to know. I got the first guy’s name, and I'll check out the details on Monday, but I have an eerie feeling they're going to be similar to the details of this accident."

"Oh, boy."
Paula grimaced. "Austin's going to love it when you have to throw in the towel because your client's a fraud."

Bailey nodded dismally. "I think I diverted him tonight, but he'll find out eventually. Maybe he's known all along. Maybe that's why he got involved in the suit. No, that doesn't compute. If he'd known, he wouldn't have offered a settlement."

"A lot of companies settle to avoid the expense of going to court," Paula pointed out.

"Not Austin. He'd fight to the bitter end. He'd never compromise." Bailey smiled then quickly turned it into a frown. That hadn't come out right.

Not surprisingly, her irritating friend hadn't missed it. "You sound proud when you say that." Paula tilted her head to one side and smirked. There was no other word for her expression. "Tell me how you diverted him tonight."

"Would you look at the time? I'd better get to bed."

She scooped Samantha into her arms.

Paula
's laughter followed her even after she closed her bedroom door. Let her laugh, Bailey decided. She'd laugh even louder—not to mention smirk—if she knew the whole story.

Bailey felt incredibly foolish about the way she'd acted. The events of the evening would certainly not go down as a point on her side of the tally sheet. She'd made a perfect idiot of herself. And the really awful thing was, she'd loved every minute of it, had been able to turn loose of her inhibitions and become thoroughly immersed in the erotic overtures she was giving as well as receiving. Worse yet, a part of her regretted her sudden departure, wished Austin hadn't called her by name, that he'd gone on holding her all night, that they could have gone to his apartment and made love again.

*~*~*

Even though it was Saturday, when Gordon hadn't shown up at the office by noon the next day, Bailey started to get worried. When she arrived home and opened the door, however, she was not so distracted that she failed to notice the huge lavender teddy bear occupying an armchair, apparently watching television. Samantha's shaggy head peeped over one of the stuffed legs. Her tail appeared in the air, waving furiously, but she seemed disinclined to leave her comfortable nest.

"Do come in, if you can find room," Paula invited, switching off the television and turning her head to peer over the back of the sofa. "This—" she swept an arm around the room— "has been going on since ten-thirty when the candy arrived."

A large, golden box of Godiva chocolates sat on the coffee table along with a porcelain music box featuring a little boy holding his hat in his hands, eyes pitifully downcast, a jigsaw puzzle with a castle in the clouds beneath a rainbow, and a basket of sloppily dyed Easter eggs, each with one wax letter, together spelling out
, "I'm sory."

"What a lousy speller," Bailey observed.

"I ate the other ‘r’ for breakfast," Paula explained. "Help yourself if you're hungry."

"You have the soul of a Mongol." Bailey sank to the floor in front of the teddy bear and scratched
Samantha's ears. "So the prince is charming again and all's right with the world."

Paula
leaned over, removed the lid from the chocolates, and selected a piece from the half-empty top layer. "Help yourself," she invited. "If eating them won't offend your soul."

"Well, it's not quite like eating the Easter eggs."

Bailey took a couple of the rich candies.