Heart in the Field (14 page)

           
“He’s never been married though. Has
he?” Barbara asked.

           
“No. Not as far as I know.”

           
“I’m sure you’ll find him
fascinating to work with.”

           
“From what I’ve experienced so far,
I’m positive I will.”

           
Barbara laughed. “You sound as if
he’s giving you a hard time.”

           
Serena was sure Barbara knew exactly
what type of hard time Nick was giving her. Wanting to leave the subject of Nick,
she glanced around her. “It’s soothing here in the house.”

           
“Isn’t it? Some peace for me while
Don
plays
his party animal role. Len’s like Don, and
will follow in his footsteps. He’s starting full time at Steel as soon as he’s
finished college.”

           
Serena hadn’t known this. “Will Don
slow down with Len’s help?”

           
“I doubt it. He’ll make Len start at
the bottom, like his father did to him. Besides, he’s on to a lot of new
projects. Like your show, for one. I’m looking forward to it.”

           
Serena raised an eyebrow.
“To see me or Nick?”

           
“To see both of
you.
Don has high hopes for you out of this.”

           
This comment made Serena curious.
“Has he said much about the show?”

           
“No. He just told me that John
wasn’t well and he’d had to replace him with Nick, and that he’d been crossing
his fingers for the show when John was going to do it, even though he was
pretty sure you could carry it. But now, with Nick, he feels much more
confident.”

           
“I understand that. Nick’s strong.”

           
Barbara made a face. “But he’s still
human. One day someone, and it’ll be a woman, will come along and hit him in
the gut and he’ll learn what being strong is.”

           
“You really do think he’s hiding
something, don’t you?”

           
“Not exactly hiding, but I think he
has unresolved differences with himself.” They heard some people walk into the
house. “I think you’d better go find that bathroom before that lot
find
it.”

           
“I suppose I should.” Serena rose to
her feet. “Nice talking to you, Barb.”

           
“A pleasure.
Have fun on the show.”

           
Serena locked herself in the bathroom
and glanced at her flushed features in the mirror. She looked disheveled so she
set about fixing her hair and makeup.
Fun.
That was
something she hadn’t had much of in her life.
Mainly because
she tried so hard to keep herself intact.
Nick had been right about that
tonight. And was that the image she gave the other employees, which had brought
about her ice maiden reputation? If she let loose with Nick, as he suggested,
would all that change? Or would she find herself involved with a man who also
had a lot of pain in his life? Could she cope with someone else’s baggage as
well as her own? She stuffed her comb and makeup back into her purse and
snapped the clasp. Wasn’t this confusion the reason she didn’t get involved
with men?
Exactly
, she told herself in the mirror.
So don’t.

•

           
Nick was trying to disentangle
himself from Juliette so he could search for Serena. For a long while he’d kept
her in his vision, now she had completely disappeared.

           
Juliette lifted two bottles from the
beer cooler, popped the tops and handed him one. She dripped the condensation
down her breasts and Nick wished she wouldn’t do it. She’d done it once. He’d
responded. Now he wouldn’t give a damn if she stripped and jumped naked into
the pool. Well, he might give a damn. He was a man, after all. But he’d rather
be with Serena. He looked at his watch. It was almost one and he was tired. He
could feel the pressure around his eyes that told him his jet lag had
definitely caught up with him.

           
Juliette patted his wrist and
covered his watch. “The night is young.”

           
“Maybe.
But
I’m still working on a five-hour jet lag.”

           
“Then why don’t we go find a bed and
lie down?” She wriggled her hips. “You’ll soon have more to think about than
being tired.”

           
“I’m not planning on staying here
the night. But if you are, go ahead.”

           
“I wasn’t planning on staying the
night if you’re not.”

           
“Well, then, that settles that. I’m
not. You’re not.” He drank from his bottle then looked around.
Reeva
and Gerry were still soaring from one group to
another. He had the impression they might be saying their farewells. In that
case they’d be leaving soon.

           
Juliette moved impatiently. “Nick.
What are we going to do?”

           
Serena could be in the house.

           
Juliette tapped his shoulder.
“Nick?”

           
“We’re not doing anything.”

           
“Great. Then I’ll say goodnight.
It’s been fun. See you around.”

           
Nick watched Juliette stumble away
from him. She’d had too much to drink. There was something about the woman that
bothered him. She was far too brittle.

           
Pleased to be alone, Nick dumped his
beer bottle down on a table and walked toward the house, where he hoped to find
Serena.

           
He expected an elegant
interior,
instead he’d never seen such clutter in his life.
There was so much furniture and so many TV sets that it was difficult to
actually get a picture of the house layout. Nick was sure it was a great place.
But for someone like him who liked simplicity of design, Don’s house was like
walking into chaos.

           
He found the downstairs powder room,
and as he washed his hands he thought he looked tired and even haggard. He had
a serious mission to accomplish on his time home. Well, two serious missions,
one, his parents’ welfare, two, his job, which he needed to help pay for his
parents’ welfare. He shouldn’t be torturing himself with a woman he might be
wasting all his energy on. Did he really want to get hooked up with a woman who
was hung up over her dead father? Who thought he reminded her of her dead
father? Even though it flattered him to be compared to Stuart Redding Brown,
there was also something creepy about Serena’s thinking he was like her father.

           
Confused by all that had happened
since last Wednesday, he ambled around the house, looking at some of the
paintings and sculpture. He was particularly interested in the original
paintings that had become some of Don’s trademark shirt designs. He was
surprised to run into Barbara Steel in one of the rooms. Despite
Reeva’s
reaction to Barbara, he actually rather liked her.
She had an acute mind with a deep intelligence. He’d noticed her summing him up,
and he was under the impression she’d liked what she saw.

           
Although he did wonder what she’d
seen.

           
“Hi, Nick.” She smiled.

           
He returned her smile. “Are you
getting away from it all?”

           
“You’d better believe it.
Although I’m gathering a crowd.
Serena’s just passed this
way.
Now you.”

           
He tried to say casually, “Is she
still around?”

           
“She hasn’t come back from the
bathroom yet.”

           
Relief that Serena was nearby
breezed into his body and cheered him up no end.

           
“Have many people left?” Barbara
asked.

           
“The crowd did seem to have thinned
a little.”

           
“Good. It’s probably down to the
hard core now.
The ones without children and babysitters.”
Barbara rose from her seat. “I suppose I’d better go and check on what’s
happening. See you again, Nick.”

           
Nick nodded. “If I don’t get to see
you before I leave, thanks for a great party, Barbara.”

           
“You’ll always be welcome.” She
disappeared from the room.

           
Nick took it from her words that she
liked him. And he liked her. Barbara was the type of person he could actually
sit down and talk to without anything else getting between them. Like a mother
would be. That was his problem. He’d never had a mother who cared. Therefore,
he had gone through his life treating all women as potential sex partners. Even
the women he had intellectually connected with he had screwed, for lack of a
better word.

           
Serena entered the room and looked
around.

           
He said, from his position in the
dark, “Barbara went back out to the party.”

           
Hand to her slim throat, Serena
twirled around, making the diamond earrings flash. “Nick. Don’t scare me like
that.”

           
“Sorry.
Didn’t
mean to.”
He pushed his hands into his trouser pockets so he wouldn’t be
tempted to touch her. He knew he needed some distance from Serena. But he also
knew he wanted to be with her on an intellectual and physical plane.
Except there wasn’t time.
A few short
months.
He couldn’t promise anything. He had nothing to promise but
distance between them. He was just like her father. All Stuart Redding Brown had offered her was a life
without him.

           
“Where’s Juliette?” she asked.

           
So she’d noticed he’d spent some
time with the other woman. But he decided to go for honesty instead of trying
to make her jealous. “We got tired of one another. I was looking for you to see
about calling it a night.
Reeva
and Gerry seemed to
be saying goodbyes.”

           
She tucked her slim gold purse-strap
over her shoulder. “Great. Do you want to go and find them with me? I’d love to
leave now. I’m tired.”

           
Keeping his hands deep in his
pockets he gazed at her tidy upswept hair and glossed lips. “You don’t look
tired. You look as fresh as you did at the beginning of the evening.”

           
She gave him a critical look. “I
can’t say that about you. You do look a little weary.”

           
“I am. So let’s go find your mom.”

           
He didn’t take her hand, but he
wanted to. As they walked across the now damp lawn to where
Reeva
and Gerald stood alone, he could feel eyes upon them. They were, he believed,
Steel’s new star couple. The position should be capitalized on. But he wasn’t
going to be able to capitalize upon it by antagonizing Serena. He was going to
have to be very gentle in the way he treated her, mentally gentle. Unlike most
of the women he’d been with. They’d been hard cases to begin with, field
journalists, war correspondents. They’d succeeded in a predominantly male
career and they weren’t about to give up anything of themselves. They’d made
life easy for him. He could keep intact. Those that seemed different, like
Lise
Kryker
, who might have
become a drag on him, he’d soon dismissed. Then why couldn’t he dismiss Serena?

           
Reeva
smiled when she saw them. “Gerry and I were just talking about calling this a
night.”

           
Serena said, “Nick and I were just
saying the same thing.”

           
Nick and I.
He rather liked that.

           
Gerry said, “I’ll go get the car
started and meet you all out the front.” He loped off.

           
Reeva
tucked her arm through Nick’s on one side and her daughter’s on the other.
“Let’s not keep him waiting.”

           
The Lincoln was purring in the front driveway.
Nick helped
Reeva
into the front seat, then opened
the back door and ushered Serena inside. He didn’t squeeze against her on the
plush velvety upholstery, but he didn’t leave any room between them. This
action wasn’t because he’d made up his mind about anything he’d thought about.

           
He just couldn’t handle not being
close to her. His imagination kept returning to her kitchen, and the way she’d
responded to him. He wanted her in his arms again, giving him that hip-grinding
response. He wanted her opening her mouth to his. He wanted to be inside her.
He’d wanted it since the moment he’d seen her in the elevator, before he’d
known who she was. He couldn’t stop wanting it.