Honey and Smoke (20 page)

He squeezed her shoulders. “Not anymore. I’m looking straight at you, Beebee. And I’m asking you to marry me.”

Betty was stunned. Not pleased, she realized immediately, just amazed that after being apart for almost a year, without even a phone call between them, he had waltzed into this party and asked her to marry him.

“I waited five years for that proposal,” she reminded him. “Its’s a little late now.”

“Oh, I know you need time to regroup. I’m going to be here for a week. Why don’t you and I duck out of this party and go to my hotel—”

“Excuse me,” another masculine voice interjected. “But I could swear that you’re making a pass at my lady.”

Betty gasped softly. She had forgotten how silently Mcix could walk. Not that she had anything to hide. He lounged against a wall several yards away, his arms crossed over his chest, one foot propped over the other, the picture of relaxation. The slit-eyed appraisal he gave Sloan was the only indication of his mood.

Sloan shot a startled look from Max to her. “Really, Beebee?”

“Really.”

“Is he important to you?”

“Yes.”

“More important than I used to be?”

“I don’t really owe you any information about my life.”

Sloan frowned. “I can deal with competition.”

“You’re not even in the game anymore.”

Max sauntered up and stood to one side, smiling without a trace of warmth. “You must be Sloan Richards.”

Betty hurriedly introduced them. She had never seen Sloan look jealous before. She had never given him any reason to.

He chewed his lower lip and scowled. “Beebee, I know I have a lot to make up for,” he said slowly. “I still love you, Beebee. I want to many you. In a church, with flowers, cake, a honeymoon, the whole thing. I want us to have kids together. I want you to be a success with your work. You can start a great barbecue restaurant in L.A. I’ll help you.”

Betty shook her head. She could feel Max watching her. Why couldn’t he be the one making this kind of impassioned offer? Hearing it from Sloan was like a cruel joke. “I’ll call you,” she told Sloan numbly.
“We’ll meet for lunch. This isn’t the time or place to—”

“Good night, Mr. Richards.” Max took her arm. He didn’t put any pressure on it, but he held it firmly.

Sloan shook his head doggedly. There was an aura of wounded loneliness about him. Betty reached out impulsively and touched his arm. “We’ll talk later. Where are you staying?”

“At the Ritz-Carlton.” He gestured numbly toward Max. “Beebee, you’re not seriously involved with this straight-edged character, are you? You’re not engaged or anything, right?”

“I’m not engaged,” she said grimly. “You’d better stop talking while you’re ahead.”

Max chuckled coolly. “Take her advice, Mr. Richards.”

Sloan pointed at Max but looked at Betty. “He’s so old, Beebee.”

“Old?” Max gave him a warning look, but smiled sardonically. “I’ll be thirty-nine in April. Why, if my pacemaker weren’t on the blink, I’d let myself get upset. How many years have
you
been shaving?”

Betty felt a headache coming on. She looked up at Max sheepishly. “Sloan is twenty-six.”

Max stared at her for a second. “Cradle robber.”

Sloan groaned dramatically. “Beebee, you have to give me a chance.”

She bristled. “All those years, I thought I was waiting for you to catch up with my maturity. But now it occurs to me that I’m not that much older than you. You should have caught up a long time ago.”

“I’ve caught up now.” He grabbed one of her hands and kissed it. “We’ll have lunch, just like you said. Okay?”

“Lunch. All right.”

“Lunch, no,” Max interjected. “It’s a waste of time.”

Sloan shot him a curt glance. “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch, grandpa.”

“Watch it. I’ll hit you with my cane.”

“Good night, Sloan,” Betty said quickly.

But Sloan was relentless. “Beebee, listen. I know I made mistakes. I used your money. Hell, I practically bankrupted you. But you knew it was for a good cause. And look at me now”—he held out his arms—“I’m a success because you loved and supported a struggling, idealistic musician. Let me make it up to you.”

Her humiliation was terrible. Max knew her financial secret, that she had been a fool, that she was struggling now because of it, that she needed his help more than she’d ever wanted him to know. His fingers dug into her arm, and she looked at him with defensive dignity.

His face was a mask of anger. “I think you and I need to talk without the wonder boy present.”

“Yes.” She shook her head at Sloan.

“Call me, Beebee—”

“Good night,” Max said in a low voice full of warning.

Betty let him lead her down the hall. His stride was long and quick, his hand a vise on her arm. “There,” she told him grimly, pointing toward a side hall. “Let’s go to the garden room.”

When they reached an artistically lighted atrium filled with potted trees and plants, he faced her, a muscle popping in his jaw, the green ice of his eyes chilling her. “Why didn’t you tell me that you were broke?”

“I didn’t want to explain the reason.”

“Is this your idea of how to treat someone you love—by keeping secrets?”

“My mistakes are private. I handle them myself.”

“That’s a strange attitude for a woman who claims to live and breathe for the spirit of marriage, the sharing, commitment, and trust.”

“You don’t want to be a marriage candidate. Why should you care if I don’t treat you like one?”

“But you considered that overage teenager a good prospect?”

“I made a mistake,” she said between gritted teeth. “I resolved it.”

“Not if you’re planning to have lunch with it.”

“Lunch does not mean romantic involvement.”

“I’m asking you not to see him again.”

“You don’t have that right.”

They traded a look of troubled challenge. She was miserable with Max’s jealousy; there was no satisfaction in hurting him over Sloan’s reappearance. Max stiffened with pride. “I didn’t think you’d stoop to playing me against another man, but that’s what it feels like at the moment.”

She took a faltering step back from him, so shocked that she almost stumbled. “You think I’d try to pressure you into marrying me?” She clenched her fists. “Relax, Major. I have too much self-esteem to play that game. I want a man to propose of his own free will.”

“Well, Sloan’s probably still waiting in the hall.”

His words whipped her. She told herself that he didn’t mean them, but the pain went too deep. “I hope so,” she retorted softly. “I’d like to talk to him.”

“I’m leaving. Stop this grandstanding and come with me.”

“Or else?”

He smiled thinly. “Or else I’m leaving alone.”

“What? No threats about selling my sauce recipe to Goody Foods? No threats about taking back your investment? No threats about our future relationship—excuse me, I forgot.” She gave a choking laugh. “You don’t believe in thinking about the future.” She pressed trembling fingertips to the corners of her eyes, willing the tears back. “Go ahead, Max. Make some threats.”

He looked at her wretchedly. “Not my style, babe. You’d know that I didn’t mean them, anyway. Now come on. Let’s go home.”

His honest anguish nearly crumpled her. “Max, go without me,” she urged in a tortured voice. “Don’t you understand? It’s not my home; it’s yours.”

“I can’t believe that you look at the situation that way.”

“I do. I’m so afraid that I’ll stay with you, and then one day I’ll lose you. And I wouldn’t be fit for any other man afterward, because nobody could take your place.”

“I’m hurting you,” he said hoarsely. “And not accomplishing anything. I want us to be together all the time, and I want to share everything in your life. Can’t we find any middle ground?”

“We did, for a little while. And it was so wonderful that I can’t risk it anymore.” She hugged herself tightly, feeling as if she were about to fall apart. “Go. Please go. This has nothing to do with Sloan showing up here tonight. You and I were headed for this moment all along.”

They were silent, the seconds passing in mute despair. Finally, like a man coming out of a trance, he shook his head. “I’ll be waiting. The front door will be unlocked.”

Betty turned away blindly and steeled herself from the urge to give up all her convictions and follow him. “I’ll be staying with my parents for the next day or two.”

He came up close behind her and rested both hands on her shoulders. “This isn’t over, babe.”

Betty quivered as he kissed her hair gently. She listened to the sound of his footsteps on the room’s tile floor as he left. Slow, subdued, but firm. He always meant what he said.

Max slumped on the edge of the couch, smoothing a scarf of Betty’s between his hands. She would have to come back, if only to get her clothes. It had only been two days. Slowly he raised his gaze to a dark window beside the fireplace. His eyes were raw from lack of sleep, and his head throbbed.

Cold rain drizzled down the windowpanes. He smiled sarcastically at the drama of the scene—the bleak night, the empty house, his angry, self-questioning mood.
Ah, yes, it was good to be independent and live only for the moment. It felt wonderful.

He Stared at the phone on the coffee table. It compelled him to curse softly and viciously. He had waited for two days. Now, without pride, he grabbed the phone receiver and punched the number for Betty’s parents’ home.

Her mother answered. Max made a gallant attempt to chat with her nonchalantly before he asked to speak with Betty. In a breathless, honeyed voice, Emily Quint explained that Betty had gone to Los Angeles for the week with a friend.

He didn’t fluster her further by asking who the friend was. He knew. She knew that he knew. He thanked her and hung up. Then he leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. The scarf felt like a whisper of good-bye in his hands.

The sunset was a smoggy red glow over Los Angeles. “To think that this view belongs to me!” Sloan exclaimed. Standing on the deck of his little Spanish-style house, he spread his arms and surveyed the city below them. “Do you know how much I had to pay for a view like this?”

Betty settled in a patio chair and set her soft drink on a glass-topped table beside it. “Too much.”

He laughed. “Right. But it’s worth it.” He ambled to the table, shoving his hands into the pockets of white trousers. With the trousers he wore an unstructured pink jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. The pink T-shirt underneath his jacket bore the name of his band, Play by Heart.

“So what do you want to do tonight, Beebee? Breeze through a few more clubs? How about dinner at Spago’s again?” He rocked back and forth on the heels of his white loafers. “Or how about we just stay here and move your luggage from the guest bedroom to the master bedroom? Hmmm?”

She laughed. “No thanks. I like the guest bedroom.”

“Beebee, what’s the point?” Frowning, he sat down across the table from her and propped his chin on his hands. “We’ve done the ‘pals’ thing for three days now. We’ve gotten reacquainted. When do we get back to basics?”

“I never said that we were going to. I only said that I wanted to observe you in your natured habitat. And that I wanted us to be friends again.”

“But I thought—”

“I wanted to teach myself a lesson, Sparky.”

“Sparky. That’s the first time you’ve used my nickname. I love it.”

“You’ll always be Sparky to me. Even when you’re a superstar, and you’re on the cover of
Rolling Stone
, and women are throwing themselves in front of your limousine, I’ll still think of you as Sparky.”

“I don’t like the implications here. What did you mean about teaching yourself a lesson?”

“You and I had some great times together. I can remember them without feeling angry at you now. I’m learning to enjoy one day at a time, Sparky.”

“But don’t forget to think about the future. Marriage. Children.” He spread his arms grandly. “I’m ready.”

“Good. I wish you luck finding the right woman.” She smiled pensively at him. “I have to go home and make some sense of my life.”

He deflated like a handsome pink balloon. “I sort of expected this,” he said glumly. “You’re going back to the old marine.”

“I’m going back to be
near
him, yes. Because I feel good about the future, and I have to believe that I can make him feel the same way.” She went to Sloan and kissed him on the forehead. “Thank you for confirming that I did some things right in the past.”

“You were the best. You’re still the best.” He looked up at her with tears in his eyes. “Beebee, will you let me give you some money? I owe you so much.”

She chucked him under the chin. “Don’t spoil a gift that was given in love. I really don’t regret anything I did for you.”

He smiled sadly. “But I get the feeling that I was just the warm-up before the real concert. You and Dudley Dooright.”

“I don’t know if Dudley will
ever
do right, but I think I’ll fly home tomorrow and see him.”

“I’m gonna dedicate the album to you.”

She was so pleased that she choked up. Sloan stood. They hugged each other tightly. “Sparky?”

“Hmmm?”

“Just don’t use my initials.”

Max’s schedule of cases was light for the day, and he finished an hour early. He left the courthouse and drove home slowly, his thoughts lethargic. Rain slashed down on the windshield. Through an exhausting output of willpower, he kept himself from thinking about Betty. So she was with Sloan, in sunny L.A. But she was
not
in Sloan’s bed.

Max believed that without doubt. It wasn’t her way. He had faith. For the first time in years faith was sweeping through him like a desperately welcome breeze in a desert.

But still, thinking about her, knowing that she wasn’t going to share his nights and his days anymore, at least not any time soon, was torture. He made himself think about the three weddings he was scheduled to perform that evening. All were costume packages.

The marriage parlor was losing its appeal. He didn’t find it funny to preside over one wedding after another, when each reminded him of the problem between him and Betty. He didn’t like watching the couples and wondering, as he’d never wondered before, if they were destined for much fuller, happier lives than he was.