Makin' Whoopee (6 page)

She tried to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks and continued. "The point is, although I adore chocolate, one taste and I break out in hives. I've got enough sense to stay away from it."

"I take it I'm in the same class as chocolate," he said ironically.

She turned to face him. "I don't want this to get out of hand, and heaven knows I don't want to bruise your ego, but you'd be bad for me, Charlie. At least have the honesty to admit that."

He stared at her, then reached out to touch her cheek. "You can't know that," he said huskily.

She shook her head urgently. "I do know. We're great as friends and wonderful as business partners. Anything more would be deadly for us both."

"You're speculating," he said, edging closer as she watched in narrow-eyed wariness. "Shouldn't we at least try, Sara?" His voice was wistful as he reached out to her.

"No!" she said explosively, jumping up. She walked several feet away. "I knew it would be this way. I should have gotten out the minute I started having the dreams."

"Dreams? What kind of dreams?"

She gave him an exasperated look.

"Oh . . . those kinds of dreams," he murmured, and dropped into a chair. "Tell me about them."

"You're crazy."

"No, I mean it. This is obviously bothering you. If you bury it, it's in control. Facing a fear makes it impotent. Once you tell me about it, it will seem ridiculous and won't have the power to disturb you." When she still hesitated, he added, "Haven't we always helped each other work out our problems? Why should this be any different?"

There was something wrong with his argument, but she couldn't put her finger on it. She ran her hands through her hair. "They're just your average erotic dreams, I suppose. Nothing to analyze really."

"Let me be the judge of that. Is it a different one every time or does one recur?"

"Usually a different one, but one pops up every so often. It's the worst."

"So tell me about that one."

She sat on a hassock, resting her chin in the palms of her hands. "I'm driving in the car, and I'm lost. I think in Kentucky, although I've never been to Kentucky. I stop at a gas station to ask directions, but when I get inside it turns into a . . . a—'"

She stopped abruptly. "This is crazy. I can't tell you these things."

"Yes, you can," he said firmly. "Forget I'm here. Just get into the dream as if it were happening right now."

Inhaling deeply, she nodded. "I'm going to regret this, but here goes. It's a pornographic studio—like one of those places where you have your portrait done in old-fashioned costumes, but in this place you have your picture taken in erotic poses. At first I just ask directions, but something about the photographer pulls at me. He tries to convince me to pose for one of the photographs. He tells me he'll make me a special deal, but I refuse. Then he smiles this crazy, slow smile, and I can feel him staring at me as I leave the building. It's as if he knows something about me that I don't know. Outside I can't get into the car. I have to go back inside. And he's waiting for me ... as though he knew I would be back."

She was taken over by the dream now, almost as though she were dreaming it again. "I tell him I might be interested in one of the portraits, and I want him to show me what the various poses are so I can choose." She snagged another deep breath. "All the time I know I really don't want a picture of myself, I just want to be near him. He puts his arm around my waist and starts to show me samples that are hanging on the walls. I'm embarrassed by the poses—they aren't in the least subtle—but I can't look away from them. His hand curves around my waist, resting just below one breast, and I can feel it burning through the fabric of my blouse." She rubbed a trembling hand across her face. "Then he takes me to see some costumes—transparent blouses and gauzy drapes."

She paused to moisten her dry lips, her gaze fixed on a point on the opposite wall as the dream played out in her mind. "He takes one costume, a tiny blue thing that wouldn't cover anything, and holds it against my breasts to see if it will fit. Then suddenly— the way it always happens in dreams—my bra disappears and his hands are under my blouse, squeezing and fondling my breasts. His shirt is gone, too, and the hair on his chest is rough against my cheek as I lean against him. It's so vivid, I can even feel his breath on my hair. Then he touches me between— between ... He touches me and I'm burning up. He says he'll have someone else take the picture and pose with me. At this point I would agree to anything. I tell him yes and everything in the picture fades except the two of us, naked on a zebra-skin rug. I try to move against his hands, to get more of the feeling." Her nails dug into her palms to keep her hands from shaking. "And the minute I move, I wake up and it's over."

Her breathing was harsh as she finished. Recounting the dream had almost been a physical punishment. She laughed shortly. "I never knew my subconscious had such bad taste. A zebra-skin rug, for heaven's sake."

Hesitantly she glanced at Charlie, and was astonished to see perspiration beading his forehead, his knuckles white as he gripped the arms of the chair.

After a moment he opened his eyes to look at her. "The photographer . . . Who was he?" he asked, his voice barely audible.

"Dammit, Charlie," she said roughly.

"Who was he?"

"You know who it was. What do you think all this was about?"

"I know what it was about, but I don't think you do. Shall I tell you, Sara Love?"

She didn't answer. She couldn't. She closed her eyes, then heard him get out of his chair. He was walking toward her. Jumping to her feet, she blurted out, "This is what I was afraid would happen, why I was determined not to let you ever find out. And it blows everything, dammit. How can we work together with this between us?"

He stopped abruptly as silence fell like a stray brick. "You mean you would dissolve the partnership?" he asked slowly.

Wearily she rubbed the back of her neck. "I don't want to do that, Charlie. But if we can't forget this ever happened we may have to."

The pause was only a heartbeat long. "Hey, no problem. It's forgotten already," he said brightly. "Buddies firm and true, just like before. Okay?"

Nodding, she turned her back on his crooked grin and left the lounge. No problem. He could forget just like that. When was she going to learn that nothing bothered Charlie for long? He was only for fun.

Sara lay in the dark bedroom, staring up at the ceiling, her body stiff. For two years she had been anticipating what had just taken place in the lounge. And for two years she had told herself if it ever happened she would be able to handle it. She should have known better. From the moment she had first set eyes on Charlie, she should have known better.

On that night, over two years ago, she had been sitting at a narrow desk in a classroom. She was staring at the huge red ears of the man in front of her and holding herself separate from the buzz of students' voices as she fought nervousness. The thought of starting over in a new career was frightening and exhilarating at the same time. She was a trained legal secretary, but now she wanted more. She needed something more challenging, a career that would force her to use her own drive and cunning.

As she sat wrapped up in her own thoughts, everyone abruptly stopped talking. Assuming the instructor had finally arrived, Sara glanced across the room . . . and there was Charlie, standing out like a Christmas tree in a forest of ordinary pines.

His blond hair was too raggedly curly to be artificially produced, his face too interesting to be handsome. The sleeves of his turquoise T-shirt had been cut away, and only frayed edges remained, exposing tanned, muscular arms. One of those arms was clasped tightly by the pink-tipped fingers of a tall, elegant redhead.

But it wasn't the clinging female or the man's hard, well-built body that held Sara's gaze. It was his eyes. They were robin's-egg blue, and as soon as they met hers, bits of sapphire flame sparked in them. He didn't look away from her as he said goodbye to his friend. He walked toward her, smiling a peculiar, lopsided smile that she would come to know so well in the days ahead.

He stopped at the desk directly behind hers. "Pardon me," he said to the girl sitting there. "I'm afraid I have a little problem. Have you ever heard of quadraterciaphobia? I don't like to talk about it, but if I don't sit in the fourth seat of the third row, I start singing French nursery rhymes." He shook his head sadly. "It can get ugly."

Sara bit her lip to keep from laughing, but the girl behind her giggled openly, obviously skeptical of his story but just as obviously charmed by him.

As soon as he was seated, he tapped Sara on the shoulder. "My name is Charlie Sanderson, and I think I love you."

Her lips twitched, but she didn't turn around. "My name is Sara Love, and I don't think you were ready to leave the institution quite yet."

"Sara Love," he said slowly, as though savoring the words. "It's perfect. You're perfect."

The room quietened again as the instructor walked in. He was a middle-aged man, short, cute, and vigorous. "My name is Miller," he said, "and I'm your instructor for the Principles of Real Estate." He turned to the blackboard as he spoke, and wrote Miller in tall, spindly letters.

Charlie leaned forward and whispered, "So that's how you spell Miller. I knew this class would pay off."

Sara tightened her quivering lips and tried to concentrate on what, the instructor was telling them about the course.

"We'll be going into real-estate law a little," Mr. Miller said, "but you'll need the full course before you're through. This will give you a taste of all the different aspects of real estate."

Charlie leaned forward again and whispered, "Speaking of law—did you know that in the state of Montana it's illegal to look like Don Knotts?"

Sara almost choked as she turned her spurt of laughter into a cough. It was but an indication of things to come. For the next hour Charlie made irreverent comments to her, and sometimes to the class at large, not enough to disrupt the lesson, but just enough to keep enthusiasm high. Although soberness was evidently not his forte, his comments and questions were highly intelligent.

When the class ended, Sara didn't even have a chance to gather her thoughts before she was being ushered into the cafeteria to have coffee with him. A little dazed, she sat and listened as he talked about his job and his family and himself.

"I'm thirty-one—exactly right for you," he said without blinking. "I've worked for my father's firm—you've heard of Sanderson Smelting?—in the bookkeeping department for five years." He sighed heavily, trying to look pathetic. "My father doesn't understand me."

"I can't say that I blame him," Sara said wryly.

He grinned. "Me either. But I did try to fit his idea of what a son should be ... for a while. Rules kept getting in my way. Do you know what it's like to sit in a tiny little office with nothing but numbers for company, all day, every day?" He shook his head. "I was having people-withdrawal symptoms. It was really sad. I started listening for footsteps outside the door, and when anyone would walk by I would grab him by the throat, pull him into my office, and make him talk to me." He shrugged in bewilderment. "For some reason I started making the other employees nervous."

She laughed, her eyes crinkling with enjoyment. He was a true original, something rare in a world of copies.

"And so," he continued, "I decided I needed to do something that brought me legitimately in touch with people. It was either real estate or used cars." He fell silent, studying her face. "And why have you sought the benefits of this nocturnal mill of knowledge?"

She smiled, glancing down at her coffee cup. "I'm a legal secretary. Do you know what that means?"

"It means you spend a lot of time making coffee and sitting on the boss's lap and gossiping at the water cooler?" he guessed, his face carefully blank.

She drew in a swift breath, then shook her head and laughed. "I know you're kidding, but that's about all the credit I get. Technically I'm supposed to type and file and take dictation, but my boss believes in delegating. I work my butt off on every case that comes into that office. Ninety percent of the time I'm doing what he and the paralegals are supposed to take care of."

"You must be pretty sharp if your boss trusts you to handle the work of lawyers and paralegals," he said, staring at her in admiration.

"Me?" she asked in surprise. "No, really I'm not. I'm just the only one there to do it. If he didn't have me, he would probably find a willing office boy or window washer to do his work." She took a sip of coffee. "In fact, he would probably give a window washer an occasional raise for the extra work— which is why I'm looking into a new career."

"But why real estate?" he asked with genuine interest. "Why don't you go for a law degree?"

"Because I would make a terrible lawyer," she said frankly. "I get too involved."

"That would certainly be different. How did you hit on real estate?"

She set down her coffee cup. "I recently bought an

old Victorian house just outside town. The broker who sold it to me loved to talk about her work, and as I listened to her complain about what a pain the older houses were, I suddenly knew real estate was where I belonged."