Hot Shot (19 page)

None of them were college graduates. Every piece of evidence pointed to the fact that they could not possibly succeed.

She read about venture capitalists—that unique breed who made fortunes from financing risky new businesses. But she couldn't imagine interesting any reputable venture capitalist in backing a three-person operation being run out of a garage that was partially occupied by the Pretty Please Beauty Salon.

In the evenings while the men worked, she curled up on the old floral sofa in the garage and made her way through one business- or economics-related book after another.

Occasionally they needed an extra set of hands and she was called upon to fetch a part or hold a light. When Yank wanted something from her, he tended to call her Sam.

"Hand me that jumper, Sam," he would say. Or, "Sam, how about a little more light."

The first few times she had corrected him, but he had looked at her so blankly that she had finally given up. He couldn't seem to comprehend the simple fact that she existed, let alone that she had become a fixture in his life. He was the strangest person she had ever met—so absorbed in his work that he seemed to inhabit an entirely different dimension of reality from everyone else.

Another week slipped by. The printed circuit boards were to be ready the next day. They had enough money to pay for them, but that was all. Where were they going to find the thousands of dollars they needed to purchase parts for forty boards? Without collateral, Sam couldn't get credit from any of the suppliers, and none of the banks would talk to him.

"They're all morons," he complained to Susannah as he paced back and forth across the garage, growing more agitated by the minute. "They wouldn't know a good idea if it hit them on the head."

It was past midnight and she was tired. Still, she tried to make him see the situation realistically. "Sam," she said gently, "you can't really expect them to lend you money.

Setting aside the issue of collateral, all they see when they look at you is a wild-eyed biker."

He shoved his hand impatiently through his hair. "Don't start with all your uptight crap again, all right? I'm not in the mood."

His attack was unfair and it hurt, but she had no idea how to defend herself, so she retreated like a turtle ducking into its shell. As she picked up the book on production efficiency that she had been reading, she tried to make excuses for him. He had been working hard. He hadn't meant to attack her. But the words on the page in front of her wouldn't focus. She kept remembering the night at the playground when Sam had asked her if she had the guts to put herself to the test. Did she have the courage to stand up for herself or was she going to spend the rest of her life nodding her head in agreement to the opinions of every man she met?

Hesitantly, she closed the book. "I think it's important for us to deal with reality. The world as it actually is—not as you think it should be." Her voice sounded tentative instead of assertive, as she had intended.

He spun on her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that appearances are important. I love the way you look and the way you dress.

I love your hair. It's part of you. But hard-headed businessmen don't tend to have much patience with nonconformists."

His lips tightened scornfully, the lips that had kissed her so passionately that morning.

"Appearances are shit, Susannah. They don't mean anything. Quality means something.

Ideas. Hard work. That's all that counts."

Her brain was calling out alarms and her stomach had begun to twist into its familiar knots, but still she forced herself to press on. "Appearances mean something in the business world."

"Maybe in that phony FBT world, but that's not what I'm about. I want success, but I goddamn well won't sell my soul for it. That's your territory, not mine."

Failure pressed in on her. Some people were good at confrontation, but she wasn't one of them. Her fingers crept toward her book and her lips began to frame a retraction. But Sam hadn't finished with her.

"You know, you're really starting to piss me off. You're a goddamn snob. If you want to go around looking at the labels in people's clothes before you talk to them, that's your business, but don't expect me to buy into it. And another thing—"

"These decoder chips are out of tolerance, Sam," Yank said from the workbench.

Susannah felt a rush of gratitude for the timeliness of Yank's interruption. Although he had been standing right in front of them all evening, she had once again forgotten he was there. As Sam went to help him, she quickly gathered up her book and retreated to the house. She would pretend to be asleep when he came in so she wouldn't have to deal with any more conflict. She had tried to hold her ground, but Sam was like a steamroller mowing her down.

Ever since she had moved in with him, she had slept nude, but now she found an ugly cotton nightgown Paige had packed for her and she slipped into it. As she went into the bathroom to brush her teeth, she thought of her father's icy silences and Cal's cold withdrawal. She tried to find comfort in the fact that at least Sam expressed his anger openly.

The bathroom door banged open. "What the hell happened to you?" he inquired angrily.

She spun around, her hand flying to her throat. "I—I was tired. I decided to go to bed."

"The hell you did. We were in the middle of a goddamn fight, and you ran away." He pushed himself into the small room. She waited for the tiled walls to bulge outward from the strain of trying to contain all the energy that he brought with him.

"Arguing never solves anything."

"Who says? Who comes up with shit like that?"

"I don't want to fight."

"Why not?" He glared at her belligerently. "Are you afraid you won't win?"

"I'm not a fighter. I don't enjoy conflict."

"You're an asshole."

She was stunned by his attack. Nothing in her life had prepared her for this kind of overt hostility. A surge of anger, dark and ugly, began to creep through her. She didn't deserve this. She loved him, and he had no right to say these things to her. Her anger frightened her as much as his attack, and she realized that she couldn't deal with either one. She had to get away from him. She had to escape before something terrible happened. Rushing to the door, she tried to push past him.

He caught her arm and pulled her around. His lips had narrowed into a hard line, and his expression was tight with anger. "You're a real chickenshit, you know that? A little mouse afraid of her own shadow."

"Let me go!" Her own anger was growing bigger and stronger, taking over her body like a foreign virus.

"No. I don't like scared little rabbits."

"Stop it! Let me go!"

"Make me."

"Don't do this!" she shouted. "Don't you treat me like this. I don't deserve this and I won't stand for it, and you can just go to hell!"

He laughed and dropped his head to her mouth. "Better. That's lots better." Her lips were already parted in indignation and he slammed his teeth against hers.

She couldn't breathe. She tried to shove him away, but he pinned her against the vanity.

She struggled, pushing at his chest with the heels of her hands. And then something strange began to happen inside her. A heat was building there, a dark excitement. She parted her lips and thrust her tongue into his mouth.

The heat turned to fire. He pushed up her cotton nightgown. It bunched around her waist as he lifted her onto the edge of the vanity. He opened her legs and stepped between them. She felt him fumbling with the front of his jeans, and she began pressing hard against him. He grabbed her knees from behind and lifted them higher. She cried out as he thrust inside her, then she locked her legs around his waist so she could take him all.

Their lovemaking was wretchedly uncomfortable and she didn't have an orgasm, but she reveled in the ferocity of it. Afterward he took her to bed and made love to her all over again. That night she lay spent next to him, exhausted from an outpouring of so much emotion, and yet filled with triumph. She had gotten angry, and her world hadn't come to an end.

Her mind churned with so much activity that she couldn't fall asleep. The light patterns shifted on the ceiling. She repositioned her pillow, but it didn't help. Taking care not to wake Sam, she slipped out of bed and headed toward the kitchen so she could get a drink of water. As she passed naked beneath Elvis's full-length portrait in the living room, she glanced uncomfortably at the singer's image. She should have put on a robe, but all her robes were back at Falcon Hill.

The fluorescent stove light in the kitchen was on, emitting a blue-white glow. Her bare feet padded across the floor. She crossed to the cupboard and reached for a glass. At that exact moment she heard a thump.

She spun around, all her senses alert, and watched in horror as the back door began to swing open.

A dark form loomed on the threshold. It took her only a few seconds to recognize the tall, thin figure as Yank Yankowski's. What was he doing here? she thought wildly. It was nearly three in the morning and she was stark naked. What was she going to say?

The chill night air he had brought with him raised goose bumps on her bare skin. Her nipples were puckered, the hair on her arms standing up. He still hadn't seen her. As he pushed the door shut, she glanced desperately around for a place to hide. She wanted to vanish into the walls, get swallowed up by the floor. If she tried to make a dash for the living room, he would see her.

He crossed directly in front of her, passing not more than five feet away but still not looking at her. The edge of the kitchen counter dug into the small of her back as she tried to smear herself into a film as thin as the aluminum coating on a wafer of silicon. The rubber soles of his sneakers squeaked on the floor. He stopped in front of the refrigerator with his back toward her. Her hand snaked along the counter, frantically groping for something to cover her nakedness.

At that moment the kitchen was flooded with light. In her imagination, it seemed as if thousands of watts of electricity had been let loose, but in reality Yank had only pulled open the refrigerator door and activated the small appliance bulb.

She made an audible gasp and then froze, afraid he had heard her. But he didn't turn. He stood in front of the refrigerator staring inside. Seconds passed. Half a minute. The tips of her fingers bumped against a pot holder lying on the counter. She clutched it like a fig leaf in front of her, feeling more embarrassed, more ridiculous by the minute.

Why didn't he move? For one wild moment she thought that maybe she was still asleep, that this was all a silly dream like the ones where she was presiding naked over a committee meeting.

He kept one hand clamped to the refrigerator handle, the other hung at his side. What was wrong with him? Why didn't he move? He was dead, she thought frantically. He had died standing up.

She inched to her right and stepped out of the direct path of the refrigerator light into the glow from the stove light. Maybe she could get to the back door and slip outside. She could hide behind the house until he left. But what if she got locked out?

He turned so abruptly that she made a small, startled sound. It reverberated in the quiet of the kitchen. Finally, he was facing her.

She froze like an animal caught in the beam of a car's headlights. His torso was silhouetted against the open refrigerator, and the stove light had silvered the lenses of his glasses so that she couldn't see his eyes clearly. But there was no doubt about the direction in which he was looking. Those glasses were pointed right at her.

Her hand was clammy around the pot holder. She hunched her shoulders forward, trying to cover her breasts with her upper arms. Her upbringing had prepared her for every conceivable social situation, but she couldn't imagine what to say in this one.

Yank continued to stare at her. She had to do something! Without taking her eyes from him, she began inching toward the living room door, the pot holder clutched over her pudendum so that she looked like Eve fleeing the Garden. As she passed in front of the stove, her body temporarily blocked the stove light and the reflection in his glasses disappeared. For the first time, she could see his eyes.

They were completely blank.

She was so surprised that she stopped moving and looked at him more closely. She had never seen eyes so vague, so unfocused. She took another step to the side. His head didn't move; his gaze remained firmly fixed on some mysterious point to her right. She couldn't believe it. What kind of man was he? Slowly she lowered the pot holder.

She almost laughed.
He didn't see her
! Once again, Joseph "Yank" Yankowski was too enmeshed in some complex internal electronics problem to be aware of what was happening around him. He was so lost in thought that he didn't see a naked auburn-haired woman standing directly in front of him.

She slipped from the kitchen and made a dash for the bathroom, where she locked the door and indulged in the first honest laughter she could remember in weeks.

Meanwhile, in Angela Gamble's kitchen, Joseph "Yank" Yankowski remained just as Susannah had left him. The refrigerator door was still open and he hadn't moved from his position. Only his eyes were different. Beneath the lenses of his glasses, the lids were squeezed tight while inside his skull billions of interconnected nerve cells churned with activity. Thalamus, hypothalamus, the fissured moonscape of cerebrum and cerebellum—

all the parts of Yank Yankowski's genius brain were at work, accurately reconstructing from memory each separate micron of Susannah Faulconer's pale naked flesh.

Even though she hadn't slept well, Susannah awakened early the next morning refreshed and full of energy. The encounter with Yank had amused her, and the confrontation with Sam had given her courage. She decided that a woman who could stand her ground in an argument with Sam Gamble was capable of anything. Even while she slept, her mind had been working, and as she stepped into the shower, she once again heard the voice that had whispered to her in her dreams.
Appearances. Appearances are everything
.