Jennifer Crusie Bundle (37 page)

“Actually what you are is naked.” Nick sounded distracted, but he didn't let go of her arm.

“It's a private pool.” Tess was too depressed to argue with any enthusiasm. “It's not illegal.”

“No, but it's probably immoral,” Nick said. “Whatever it is, I like it. Let's go back to my bed and discuss it.”

Tess blinked up at him, treading water a little faster. “I thought we were finished.”

“Well, we were until your apartment got trashed and I thought about losing you, and then you ended up naked in my pool,” Nick said. “I remember being sure I never wanted to see you again. I just don't remember why at the moment.”

Tess sighed. “It was probably something about your career. Everything with you is.”

“What career?”

“Really?” Tess said, her voice suddenly bright with hope.

“I'm thinking about becoming a pool boy,” Nick said. “You meet such naked people.”

Tess jerked the arm he was holding and yanked him into the pool.

“Hey,” he sputtered when he surfaced, but by then she'd wrapped herself around him and found his mouth with hers, and they slipped under the water as she kissed him.

Nick kicked them both to the surface again and held her tight against him as he tried to get his breath back. Tess trailed kisses down his neck, licking the water from his skin with her tongue, loving the feel of the muscle against her mouth.

“A bed,” Nick gasped. “I have this great bed—”

“Here,” Tess said, and kissed him. She felt him relax into her as he pulled her hips tight against his, and she wrapped her legs around him again, feeling the slick wet silk of his shorts against her thighs. “Those have got to go,” she told him, and began to slide her fingers under the waistband to yank them down.

“Wait a minute,” Nick said, grabbing her hand, still trying to keep them afloat. “About my bed—”

“Here,” Tess said, tugging downward on his shorts.

“The neighbors—” Nick said, tugging upward.

“Here,” Tess said tugging harder.

“I really think my bed—” Nick tried again, prying her fingers from his waistband.

Tess gave a scream of fury and pushed him away. “Forget it,” she said. “Just forget it.”

“Look, is this the romantic thing again?” Nick groped through the water for her again. “Because I don't see what's so romantic about a damn pool.”

“It's not just romantic,” Tess said, kicking backward to get away from him. “It's spontaneous. It's sexy. It doesn't feel like a damn career move!” She was so mad she dove underwater to get away from him, and when she surfaced he was gone.

Well, good. The hell with him. If she'd given in, she'd have ended up having sex in bedrooms for the rest of her life. Which of course, wouldn't have been an entirely bad thing since it would have been with Nick. It was actually pretty cosmic when she thought about it. But she wasn't going to think about it because he was the most unspontaneous, conservative, let's-plan-every-move man she'd ever met. Which did, of course, often lead to great sex since he made sure…

Oh, hell.

Tess dove for the bottom again and swam across it, only to swallow half the pool when somebody grabbed her ankle.

Nick hauled her to the surface, patting her on the back while she choked.

“Don't
do
that!” she said when she could talk. “I almost drowned.”

“Don't exaggerate,” Nick said, and kissed her.

“I thought you left,” she said when she came up for air. “Is this come-up-to-my-bed, part two, because if so…” She stopped, distracted by the realization that he wasn't wearing his shorts.

“No,” Nick said, pulling her against him. “This is the-hell-with-the-neighbors-but-I-had-to-get-a-condom, part one. Do you know if chlorine has any effect on latex?”

“No idea.” Tess locked her legs around him, not caring what chlorine did to latex.

“Well, let's find out,” Nick said, and then they almost did drown.

W
HEN
T
ESS WOKE UP
the next morning, there was a note on the black silk pillow beside her with a twenty-dollar bill and a key.

She looked at the ceiling in exasperation and then picked up the note. “Dear Tess,” it read. “The twenty bucks is for cab fare so you can get out of the house today, so stop scowling at the ceiling. I took some swimming-pool water with me to the office so I can snort the chlorine and think of you all day. I'll bring dinner with me when I get home at six. I'm glad your apartment got trashed. Love, Nick.”

She cocked an eyebrow at the note and smiled. It wasn't “How do I love thee, let me count the ways,” but it wasn't bad at all.

She snuggled back down under the comforter and thought about her day ahead. She had to go back to the apartment to find Angela. She had to go to the police station to fill out forms on the break-in. She had to call Alan Sigler to tell him that she definitely wanted the job at Decker even if his wife did hate her. She had to stop by the Foundation and catch up on her tutoring. She had to call her mother and ask about Lanny. And then there was Gina…

She reached out for the white phone beside Nick's bed and dialed Gina's number, but there was no answer, so she crawled out of bed and went to get dressed. The police station wasn't a problem, but Alan Sigler…

She spread her clothes out on the white bed in the guest room and stared at them in dismay. They were fine for the police, fine for the Foundation, fine for protesting, fine for going out for pizza, but for making an impression on Alan Sigler?

Okay, she could get by with her blue skirt. Nobody ever looked at skirts, anyway. But she had to have something classy on top. People looked at stuff like shirts and jackets and…

She put on her skirt and went back to Nick's bedroom and opened his closet.

It was just as she expected. Racks of beautiful shirts, gorgeous jackets. Of course, they were all white and black, but robbers couldn't be choosers. She pulled a white shirt off a hanger and read the label: Armani. “Figures,” she said, and then stopped, remembering that Angela wasn't around to talk to. She'd go back to the apartment to look for Angela first.

She shrugged the shirt on without thinking any more about it, rolling the cuffs several times. When she looked in the mirror, the shirt was beautiful but a little too big. She went back to the closet and pulled out one of Nick's black vests and put it on. Better. Now she looked like Annie Hall with legs. If she put on earrings, she'd look feminine enough to get away with it.

She grabbed the twenty off the bed and went to call a cab and Gina one more time.

“Y
OU'RE LATE
, Christine said to Nick as he breezed through the outer office and into his own. “Park left you the Welch file.”

“Christine, I'm the boss.” Nick dropped into his desk chair and pushed the Welch file to one side. “I'm never late. Your world revolves around me.”

“Mr. Patterson called,” Christine said. “He wants to have lunch with you.”

“Not today,” Nick said.

“You're kidding,” Christine said, and Nick looked up at the expression in her voice.

“No, I'm not kidding. I'm busy. Call Annalise Donaldson and make an early lunch date for today at The Levee. Call Alan Sigler and make a dinner date for tomorrow at The Levee. Find out who the landlord is at this apartment house—” he handed her a card “—and get him on the phone immediately. Then get me Thom Nordhausen at the Charles Theater for racquetball at two. That'll get me out of a long lunch with Annalise. Reserve a court.” He stared at his desk for a moment. “What am I forgetting?”

“The law firm?” Christine said.

Nick frowned up at her. “Do you know what effect chlorine has on latex?”

“Not good,” Christine said. “Don't do that again.”

“Remind me to have my pool drained,” Nick said. “Now go. I want those people yesterday.”

She was gone before he finished the last word.

He leaned back in his chair and looked at the Welch file.

Plagiarism.

Nick closed his eyes and thought. If it wasn't for the partnership, he'd be running as fast as he could away from Welch. If Tess was right about the earlier story—and Tess was invariably right about injustice, because she had an
instinct
for injustice—then this was going to be a huge tangle.

But it might get him partner.

Hell, he'd handled huge tangles before. It wouldn't kill him to undo another one. He thought about it for a few more minutes and then hit the intercom button. “Christine, I need to set up a dinner later this week with Norbert Welch. Get him for me, please, but I'll talk to him.”

“You're on for lunch with Donaldson and racquetball with Nordhausen at three,” Christine said. “I'm working on the Siglers. Ray Briggs is on line two.”

“Who the hell is Ray Briggs?”

“Landlord.”

“Christine, you are a wonder.”

“I need a raise,” she said.

T
ESS SPENT
the entire morning at the police station, a lonely lunch hour in her old apartment waiting for Angela to come back and an hour in the afternoon with Alan Sigler in his paneled office, talking about education, the Decker Academy and the board.

“It's really up to the board now,” he'd told her as he walked her to the door at the end of the meeting. “I'll give you my highest recommendation, but it's the board's decision. And they can't act until the end of the month. One of the old board members resigned, and we're still screening replacements, so we won't handle the staffing problems until the next meeting. Keep your fingers crossed.”

“Thank you,” Tess said, shaking his hand. “I really want to work at Decker.”

“I know,” Sigler said, clearly puzzled. “I'm not sure why, though. You don't seem the type to be impressed by prestige and money.”

“I just want to teach,” Tess said, omitting to tell him she just wanted to teach at the Foundation.

It wasn't really being dishonest. It was being tactful.

Maybe Nick was starting to rub off on her, after all.

She left the Foundation early to catch the bus home, and it dropped her off at the end of Nick's street at four-thirty. As she walked home, she absentmindedly computed how long it would be until he got home. An hour and a half at least. Maybe two. Not too long.

She let herself into the house and changed into her sweats, relieved to be out of hose and heels. Then she wandered about the house, afraid to touch anything, missing Angela and trying not to miss Nick. It wasn't a big house, but it was extremely white and it echoed and it seemed cold although the thermostat said seventy.

Not the kind of place Lanny would have built.

Now that's ridiculous,
she told herself. This was not about Lanny. This was about…

Lanny. Lanny and the manuscript.

She kicked off her flats and went to the phone.

“Elise?” she said when her mother answered. “It's me.”

“Tessie?” Elise's voice came over the wire, enthusiastic and vague as always, as if she was really glad to hear from Tess but couldn't quite remember who she was.

“Right, Tess, your daughter,” Tess said. “How's Daniel?”

“Just fine, darling,” Elise said. “He's out in the garden now. It's almost past canning season, but you know your father—he keeps going until the ground is bare. Are you all right?”

“I'm fine, but I need your help. Listen closely to this because it's important—do you remember Lanny?”

“Who?”

Tess was patient from long practice. “Lanny. Remember at the Yellow Springs commune the man who told the CinderTess story?”

“Well,” Elise began doubtfully, “yes, maybe…”

“Big guy, brown hair, brown beard, one summer in Yellow Springs. After he left, you used to read it to me at night, remember?” Tess urged her. “It was on notebook paper. In turquoise fountain pen.”

“A fairy tale?” Elise said. “With princes and speeches?”

“Right!
Great.
Do you still have the manuscript?”

“Of course not, darling.” Elise said. “That was almost thirty years ago. Why would I still have—”

“Who would have it?” Tess asked. “This is important, love. Think.”

“Well, I suppose somebody from the commune might. But really, Tess, you're making a big thing out of a fairy tale.”

Tess pulled Nick's phone directory off the shelf under the phone and flipped to the blank lines on the back page. “I need names and numbers,” she told her mother. “Anybody who might know something about Lanny and the manuscript.”