Dancing in the Dark (8 page)

“Better,” Mary said. “You got them in their pocketbooks.”

Charity shook her head. “I almost didn’t get anything. I was too nervous.”

“It was your first time,” Mary said. “Of course you were nervous.”

Jake gaped at Charity. “You told me you did presentations before.”

She glanced at him. “Actually, you told me I did. I wasn’t about to argue with the boss.”

And then she began to laugh. Uproariously. Mary joined her. Jake started to chuckle too. He couldn’t help himself.

He put his arm around both women because it gave him an excuse to put his arm around one. “Come on, ladies. Lunch is on the big dumb boss.”

“You are not getting any younger, dear. That biological clock is ticking away.”

Charity smiled at her mother as she poked at her filet of beef. Lord help her, but her mother was on a baby kick again. “Yes, Mom, I hear it.”

“That phrase always sounds like one is about to explode,” her mother said. “Still, I would see thee have children, Charity. Thee would be a wonderful mother.”

“Emmaline, you’re not in character anymore,” Charity’s father said. “And leave the child alone. It’s not her fault. If you would pay attention to news in your own century more often, you’d know the statistics are against her. She’s more likely to get hijacked than get married. Of course, if she’d married that graduate student of mine … What was his name?”

“Louis, dear,” Emmaline replied. “He teaches at Brown now.”

“Yes, that’s right.” Robert smiled. “I always found it humorous that he went from one Brown to another.
Still, Charity, he was a very nice young man.”

“You thought I was too young, remember?” Charity said, while wondering why she hadn’t gone home with Jake and Mary.

For a number of reasons, she answered herself. But especially because of the kiss that morning. She could still taste his lips on hers. All day the sensation had lingered. Her own reaction, the pulsing desire that had risen so swiftly in her, had appalled her, upsetting her on the presentation. She’d had to push the memory aside all day.

Unfortunately, her father was on the marriage kick now. Combined with her mother, the conversation would be deadly with the way she was feeling.

“I said you were too young for Louis?” Robert looked surprised. “But he teaches at Brown. You could be teaching. I’ve never understood why you wanted to work in the private sector. More and more students are turning from the pleasure of knowledge to the pleasure of money. It’s very disappointing. But you know we’d love to have you come home, Charity. We miss you.”

She smiled ruefully. Her dad had never quite forgiven her for leaving school, but he was generous about it. “I miss you two also. New Jersey is only six hours away, and that’s where my work is. It’s not the end of the earth.”

“Thank goodness,” her mother said, then added to her father, “I suppose we can hope for a nice terrorist for Charity, Robert. Maybe she’ll stop being so fussy about men. You know, terrorists do have a number of similarities to privateers …”

“No wonder I moved to New Jersey,” Charity muttered as her parents launched into a conversation on
the nuances of accrediting privateers four hundred years ago.

She frowned as she considered what her mother had said. Was she fussy about men? She had decided not to settle for immature, noncommitted men. Was that a mistake? She hoped not. Her luck was abominable when it came to nice men who cared for her. A nice man didn’t seem to be out there, which made having children complicated. She’d once considered having a child on her own, but she wasn’t prepared for all it entailed. Maybe she never would be. But why was it so hard to find a quiet man with whom she could share a quiet life?

A little perverse voice inside her suggested there was a possibility. No, she thought. Not that one. Definitely not that man. Jake Halford was not quiet. He was dangerous. The little voice added other adjectives, like “exciting” and “different.” And “sexy.”

Charity stiffened as she caught sight of a man entering the hotel dining room. He looked exactly like Jake. She blinked, but instead of the vision vanishing, it grinned and waved at her, then began to weave its way around the tables toward her.

“Hello,” the vision said as it neared her. Not only did it look like Jake, it sounded like him too. If it stripped down naked and began to chant around the candelabrum, she’d know it really was Jake. Her brain, unfortunately, told her this was no vision.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, staring up at him. She felt violated somehow, as if he’d invaded her privacy, even though it was a public restaurant.

“I decided to stay on and see some more people I know, then take a later flight back tonight.” He smiled innocently at her.

She narrowed her eyes. “Funny, you didn’t say anything before this.”

“Spur-of-the-moment. All for the good of the company, you know.”

“Dear, aren’t you going to introduce us?” her mother asked in the sweetest of voices.

“This is my boss, Jake Halford, who is supposed to be home in New Jersey,” she replied just as sweetly. “These are my parents, Jake, Robert and Emmaline Brown.”

“Won’t you join us?” Emmaline said, a particular gleam in her eye that said “Nosy mother’s interest on red alert.”

“Thank you.” Jake took the fourth seat at the table as Charity clamped her lips shut on any protest. Not that a protest would do any good. Her mother was as determined as Jake. One she couldn’t cure, but the other would find himself in “detox” as soon as they got out of there. Dangerous and different, exciting and sexy, popped into her mind again, but she pushed the notions aside.

“You should be very proud of your daughter,” Jake said. “She’s putting together a deal that’s worth millions of dollars. It’s going to save our company.”

“Really?” Both her parents turned to look at her as if she’d grown two extra heads.

Charity smiled at them. “That’s why I came to Boston, to see some people about it. I told you when I called, remember?” The deal didn’t have any meaning for her parents, but they took notice that it clearly did for Jake. She could almost forgive him for showing up. Almost. But she could still taste his kiss.

“That’s wonderful,” Emmaline said, then she frowned in puzzlement.

Charity swallowed a laugh. Anything about computers could sink only so far with her mother before it hit bedrock. And her father was looking dubiously at Jake, thank goodness. The last thing she wanted was parental approval of Jake. Maybe she ought to tell her parents about his propensity for naked fire-dancing. She could just hear her mother asking how he kept from getting certain parts burned.

She opened her mouth …

“I understand that you teach early-American history, sir,” Jake said to her father before she could get her words out. “And you, ma’am, are at Olde Plimoth. I follow the more ancient philosophies also. I’m a student of Bly’s.”

“
Iron John
?” Robert asked, perking up. “The men’s movement?”

“What’s an Iron John?” Emmaline asked.

“A bathroom with a very cold seat?” Charity suggested.

Jake chuckled, while her father, with less humor, sputtered a protest at her. Jake said to her mother, “It’s a book written by a poet named Robert Bly, Mrs. Brown. Bly explains the men’s movement through a little-known Grimms fairy tale called ‘Iron John.’ ”

“It’s Emmaline, please. And I know that tale. But how does he weave this men’s movement into the fairy tale?”

Jake launched into an explanation of a wild man, Iron John, who lived in a wood and is captured, then set free by a king’s son. John teaches the prince how to be a man. Robert, who evidently
knew the work, chimed in with asides regarding men having lost their way from their true selves. Emmaline debated specifics, but Jake had been right. The basic philosophy of men’s jobs differing from women’s appealed to her because of her own work in Olde Plimoth.

Charity sat back with a sigh of resignation and finished her dinner. Her parents clearly liked Jake. A lot.

She couldn’t think of anything worse than that.

“How mad are you?” Jake asked as they settled in their seats on the last shuttle returning to Philadelphia.

“You were a big hit with my parents,” Charity said politely.

“That mad, eh?”

“That mad.”

“I did have to stay on,” he said. “To drum up more business for Wayans. I’m sorry I didn’t realize the advantage of doing so before the presentation. Now, you’re not going to yell at me for that.” He paused. “Are you?”

She smiled a tiny tolerant smile. “No. I think it’s wonderful that you’re so conscientious. Wayans is lucky to have you.”

“Thanks. How long do I have to wear the hair shirt you’ve got me in?”

“Forever. It fits right in with your Hairy John.”

“That’s Iron John.”

“The fairy tale about men. Yes, I remember.”

Jake frowned. Something in the way she said that bothered him. Still, she would be skeptical. She
was a woman and had never experienced a man’s frustrations. That was only fair. Men had trouble with women’s frustrations. Like now. He decided to change the subject altogether. “Your parents don’t appreciate you, do they?”

She rounded on him, shocked. “Yes, they do. Why would you say that?”

He shrugged. “Because they looked so bewildered when I told them about your presentation and the project you’re handling. Our world’s like an alien world to them, isn’t it?”

“I suppose,” she said thoughtfully. “Academia does tend to isolate my father, and my mother spends her days three centuries in the past. They don’t view the world as most do. On the other hand, I don’t view things that are important to them in quite the same way. It’s a mutual ‘I just don’t get it.’ But that’s okay. They’re happy in what they do and I’m happy in what I do. They did know the success of the presentation was important to me.”

“It’s important to me too,” he said, “and no one understands it better.”

“Thank you.” Her voice was low, innocently seductive.

He gazed at her, proud of what she’d accomplished that day. Dave didn’t know the gem he had in her. Something had to be done about that. He liked the way she understood her parents and accepted them, in spite of their clear life-style differences. He liked … hell, he liked everything about her.

Charity wasn’t a prize to be captured, to be won. He’d realized that several days earlier. She was a fascinating woman, one he wanted to explore. He had a feeling that once she let a man in, he wouldn’t
want to come out again. If was as if she were entrapping him. He was happily looking forward to getting caught.

The rest of the flight home passed in silence, mainly because Charity closed her eyes, indicating her weariness. Very crafty, he acknowledged. He enjoyed her quiet presence, though, as much as their conversations.

And he could watch her. Watch the way her breasts rose and fell leisurely with each breath she took … watch the way her legs shifted sensually against each other … watch how her hands were folded modestly in her lap, as if hiding the very essence of her femininity. Her perfume, sharp and mysterious, drifted on the air currents surrounding them. The interior lights of the plane were off, creating the illusion of privacy. He wanted to reach out and touch her, kiss her, taste her soft flesh and free her hair from its confines. But he knew he couldn’t indulge himself. The privacy
was
only an illusion. However, he could enjoy the torture.

The plane landed all too soon. He drove them home in his car, the privacy more real but the deprivation still very much in force. When they reached her apartment, he walked her to her door.

“I’m coming in for one minute,” he said firmly, “just to check that everything’s all right inside.”

“I appreciate that, but—”

He cut her off. “Charity, I have a single mother and four sisters who raised me to be a gentleman. Besides, I would want someone to check on their homes, for safety’s sake.”

He took the keys from her hands and unlocked her apartment door. Inside, he was true to his word,
looking in every room. Of course, he couldn’t help it that he found her decor appealing, right down to the pointedly single bed in her bedroom. She waited for him by the front door.

“Go to bed, Charity. It’s late and you had a great day. And no
Desirée’s Secret Desire
.”

With that, he walked out the door, whistling.

“
Desirée’s Secret Desire
, my aunt Fanny,” Charity muttered for the hundredth time as she cut up a whole chicken late Saturday afternoon. The work now would save her plenty over the next few weeks in dollars and time.

What a great parting shot, she thought, her brain far from her bargain meat. She chopped the thigh from the leg with one clean swing of the cleaver. And she was angry with him for interrupting her family dinner in Boston. What a half-baked story about suddenly wanting to see more prospective clients! She bet he’d wanted to see something else entirely and that Desirée played a central theme.

“That bum,” she mumbled, clanging the cleaver down with force on the poor chicken leg. To be fair, he hadn’t suggested they stay over a second night. He hadn’t even mentioned it. Considering the way she’d cold-shouldered him after that kiss, the thought probably hadn’t even crossed his mind.

She whacked the chicken again for good measure, telling herself she absolutely
was not
disappointed. Not the least little bit. She muttered darkly under her breath even as she wondered at his sudden lack of interest. Realizing what she was doing, she took
a deep breath and pushed the thought away. She should have given him a parting shot last night, right in the patootie. His new nickname was Aggravation from Hell.

So why did she find him so damned attractive? She slapped the mangled pieces of chicken on a plate and centered a new section of fowl on the board. She just didn’t understand herself. His interest in her was flattering. He might be interested only in one thing, but he was interested in that one thing with her. That was more tempting than she cared to admit.

Okay, he had some appeal.
Chop
went the cleaver, and another leg went flying on the cutting board. He was gentlemanly enough to check her house for safety and leave immediately after. Usually men used that as a ploy to get an invitation to stay for coffee … and more. Jake hadn’t, and the gesture had touched her.
Chop
. She still couldn’t believe how she’d talked to him on the telephone. And how he’d kissed the breath out of her the next morning.
Chop, bam, chop!