Ready & Willing (28 page)

“Hi,” she said when she saw him, the single word coming out breathless and nervous.

He held up the brown sack as if it were a spiritual offering. “I bring sustenance for what promises to be a long night.” When Audrey’s eyes went wide, he realized how what he had said could be misconstrued by anyone who was
not
out on not-a-date. “Oh, man, that came out all wrong.” He pretended not to notice that she still looked anxious and uncomfortable. “I just meant we have a lot to talk about, that’s all.”

She nodded silently and stepped aside, something he hoped meant he should come in. Warily, he took a step forward, and when it looked like she wasn’t going to throw anything at him, braved a few more. Eventually he crossed the threshold and then—yes!—he was inside the house without any more missteps. At her nervous invitation, he followed her through the living room that she’d turned into her hat shop, through another room that had doubtless originally been intended as the dining room, but which she’d filled with more hat displays, into a kitchen whose door probably remained closed during the day to give the impression of this building being a business, not a home.

The kitchen was plenty homey, though, its terra-cotta tiles, granite counters, and sage green cabinets giving it an old world
cucina
feel. Copper pots dangled from an overhead grid, and plants sprang up from painted pots in a greenhouse window over the sink, some of which Nathaniel recognized as herbs, some of which were obviously just ornamental. He set the bag of food on a scarred wooden table, noting that Audrey had already set two places on it. On the up side, she’d included wineglasses, which could be interpreted as oh-yes-it-is-too-a-date. On the down side, the places were set on opposite sides of the table instead of side by side.

“So, what other food do you like besides Chinese and Chow Wagon?” he asked as he began withdrawing white paper cartons from the bag.

She looked puzzled by the question. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged, hoping the gesture looked casual. “Just curious.”

“I like just about everything,” she told him.

“Any favorites?”

She smiled. “Indian.”

He started to say that next time, he’d hit Shalimar or Royal India or India Palace on his way—not that any of those was on his way—then figured they probably weren’t supposed to talk about a next time. Even if there would be a next time of some kind. Just probably not the kind he was thinking he’d like it to be.

“So . . . what’s your favorite color?” he asked as he began opening the cartons he’d removed from the bag.

She expelled a single, anxious chuckle. “What difference does it make?”

He smiled, hoping the gesture looked casual. “Just making conversation.”

She narrowed her eyes at him a little, then said, “Green.”

“What’s the best book you ever read?”

This time there were two chuckles, but they still sounded anxious. “Nathaniel . . .”

“I’ve run out of things to read,” he said, hoping the statement sounded casual. “I’m always open to recommendations.”

She expelled an impatient little sound, but managed a small smile. “I don’t know. I guess something by Agatha Christie or Anya Seton. I read for entertainment. Nothing too heavy. Something to take me out of my world and into another one. After years of crunching numbers all day, I like to set my brain free when I read.”

He nodded. “Good to know.” Then, because he figured luck wasn’t much use if you couldn’t press it from time to time, he added, “Music? What performers do you like?”

She did laugh at that, and finally, finally, seemed to relax a little. “Nathaniel, why are you asking me this stuff?”

He’d finished opening everything by now, so moved to the counter where a single bottle of wine and a corkscrew sat. Pointing at them in silent question, she nodded, so he went about opening the wine. He was grateful to have the task, because it gave him a good reason for avoiding her gaze.

“I just want to know more about you, Audrey,” he said honestly. “It occurred to me today that even though you’re in the position of saving my soul, and I’m in the position of relying on you to do that, we know almost nothing about each other, other than the basic essentials of name, occupation, education, and . . .” He hesitated only a moment before concluding, “Marital status.”

She dropped her gaze at that, and pink bloomed on each cheek. Okay, so they knew what it was like to kiss each other, too, he amended to himself. Which was extremely good knowledge to have. It still wasn’t enough knowledge. He wanted more. And not just knowledge of her raindrops-on-roses favorite things. He wanted to know everything there was to know about Audrey Magill. He wanted to know all the deepest, darkest secrets she carried inside. And he wanted to know every last naked inch of her outside.

But he was getting way ahead of himself. Not surprising, considering the fact that this was territory he’d never explored before. He wasn’t used to pursuing women. Mostly because he’d never met one he particularly wanted to pursue. Anything resembling a pursuit that he may have undertaken in the past had been largely perfunctory, since, invariably, the women in question wanted very much to be caught.

Audrey, he knew, wasn’t the type to come around on her own. Even though she wanted him at least on some level—there was no denying she’d enjoyed that kiss the other night as much as he had—she was too devoted to the memory of her husband to take the first step. Or even the second step. Or the third, fourth, or fifth. And Nathaniel didn’t want to move too quickly or push too hard, lest he scare her off completely. So how did a man go about pursuing—seducing?—a woman who was still in love with another man? Especially when it was likely she would always love that other man? How could he compete with a cherished memory, unless it was to win some affection—or something—from Audrey himself? And how could he win some affection—or something—from her if she didn’t even know him?

“My favorite writer is William Faulkner,” he said. “And my favorite color is blue. I like Indian food, too, but I like Latin cuisine even more. My favorite performer is Wynton Marsalis, followed closely by his brother Branford. For what it’s worth, I don’t really have any hobbies these days, but I still have a stamp collection I started as a kid, and I confess that, from time to time, whenever some interesting stamp crosses my desk, I tuck the envelope into a drawer for later extraction.” He paused for only a moment before adding, “And my childhood sucked. But I guess it could have been worse. I don’t suppose I have any more issues than anyone else in the world does.”

He’d watched Audrey carefully as he spoke, and took heart in the fact that she didn’t look like she wanted to reach for the phone and call some mental health hotline. Even better, once he was finished, she nodded slowly and said, “My hobby used to be making hats. Now that it’s my career, I don’t have a lot of time for anything else. I like all kinds of music, but my favorite is probably jazz, too. My childhood was pretty idyllic, actually. My parents doted on me, being the dream-fulfilling only child. On Christmas morning, you could barely see the floor for all the presents. We camped at Red River Gorge every fall and went to King’s Island every summer.” She shrugged. “But I have issues, too. Mostly I wonder why all the people I love leave me when I need them most.”

He wanted to tell her he wasn’t going anywhere, wanted to make clear he had every intention of staying in her life as long as she would have him. But he couldn’t say that yet, not honestly. At this point, he had no way of knowing how long he would be anywhere. What happened if they didn’t get his soul back? How long could a person exist without one? And what kind of existence would it be if he was, in the literal sense, soulless?

He knew there were people who thought he’d lost his soul a long time ago. He’d been called soulless more than once in his adult life. It hadn’t been that long ago that he’d told Audrey himself that if he lost his soul, it would be one less thing he’d have to worry about. And hell, at the time, he’d meant it. But that was before he’d gotten to know Audrey. Back when he was, you know . . . soulless. He didn’t want to be that way anymore.

So in response to her remark about the people she loved leaving her when she needed them most, Nathaniel only nodded slowly his understanding. Because even if he hadn’t understood that before, having never loved anyone, he was beginning to understand it now.

All he said, though, was, “I got chicken, beef,
and
vegetable lo mein. Which do you prefer?”

 

IT WAS NEARLY DARK, THE LEFTOVERS HAD BEEN
IT WAS NEARLY DARK, THE LEFTOVERS HAD BEEN divided equally, and the wine bottle was empty when Nathaniel and Audrey finally got around to the reason they’d agreed to meet for not-dinner. In between, she had to admit, they passed a fairly nice hour talking about things other than lost souls, problematic land development, and haunted houses. For instance, Audrey learned that Nathaniel’s pick in this year’s Derby was the same as hers: Silk Purse, the upstart filly who was a late entry, and whose trainer was taking the world—or, at the very least, Louisville—by storm.

She also learned that Nathaniel had been given two coveted tickets on the
Belle of Louisville
for the Great Steamboat Race on Wednesday that he hadn’t planned on using unless he could find someone to tag along. He’d thrown her a meaningful look when he said it, but he hadn’t asked if she wanted to tag along. And where Audrey would have thought she would be grateful not to be invited—even if it
would
be a lot of fun to be on the
Belle
during the race—she instead found herself feeling a little disappointed that he hadn’t asked.

Which was all the more reason she should be grateful, she told herself. Even if thinking that way made no sense at all.

They were still seated at her kitchen table, but where there had been plenty of light pouring in through the window when they first sat down, now the kitchen was bathed only in the amber light of a small boudoir lamp atop the refrigerator, something that gave the room a warmer, cozier feel. Nathaniel had removed his suit jacket before they ate, and now his tie hung unfettered from his collar, and he’d rolled back the cuffs of his shirt to nearly his elbow, revealing the strong forearms beneath. He leaned back in his chair, but his hand rested near the base of his glass, fingering the stem idly as he studied the ruby red spirit within.

The scene was much too mellow and pleasant for Audrey’s comfort, so she asked without preamble, “What did your guy find out about Nicholas Pearson?”

Nathaniel glanced up at that, his gaze unfocused, as if he’d forgotten where he was or why he was here. Then he shook off his preoccupation almost literally and said, “A lot, actually. None of it good.”

Audrey leaned forward, bracing her elbows on the table, and tried not to notice how much closer it brought her to Nathaniel, and how his scent—a mixture of something soapy, something spicy, and something utterly, overwhelmingly male—surrounded her. Of course, she could have leaned back in her chair again to retreat from his manliness, but she didn’t want to be hasty.

“Like what?” she asked.

He traced the base of his glass with an idle finger, drawing her eye. Back and forth his middle finger arced on the half of the circle that faced him before sliding up the slender stem. Then his thumb began to draw leisurely lines on the bowl of the glass, up and down . . . up and down . . . up . . . and . . . down . . . He skimmed his fingertips and the pad of his thumb over the curves of the glass in a way that was almost erotic, the same way she imagined he would guide them over a woman’s breast.

Her eyes fluttered closed as images of that very thing unfolded in her brain. Those hard, blunt fingers sliding along her collarbone and between her breasts, sifting along the lower curve of one before moving to circle the nipple of the other. Then they were tripping down over her ribs and torso, that long index finger dipping into her navel and out again, then lower still, into the nest of curls between her legs, then the damp flesh of her sex, opening her, furrowing through the warm, sensitive folds of skin to penetrate her with long, languid strokes, over and over and—

She snapped her eyes open, only to find Nathaniel gazing at her as if she’d lost her mind . . . or something. Darting her gaze over his shoulder, she lifted her wine to her mouth for a long quaff, never mind that quaffing wine was something she hadn’t done since college.

“For one thing,” he said in reply to her question, his voice edged with something akin to . . .

Well. Akin to the very thing Audrey had just been feeling herself. She quaffed her wine again.

“For one thing,” he tried again, his voice leveling off some this time, “The name Nicholas Pearson has definite ties to organized crime in New Jersey.”

Well, that certainly caught her attention enough to make her almost forget about erotic finger action on a wineglass. Almost. “Like to the Teflon Don?” she asked.

“Not that branch of the mob,” he told her. “And not that high up. Nicholas Pearson was more of a fringe guy. But he was a wannabe above-the-fringe guy who had aspirations of breaking into that higher echelon. No one took him very seriously, though. They let him in on petty stuff, but mostly used him to take care of problems.”

Audrey didn’t like the sound of that. “What kind of problems?”

“Problems like people who didn’t make timely payments or do things they were supposed to do. Nicholas Pearson was the one who broke fingers and knee caps and beat the hell out of people.”

That was petty stuff?
Audrey wondered. Then she realized Nathaniel was talking about the guy in the past tense. “You talk like he doesn’t work for the mob anymore.”

“He doesn’t. At least not up in New Jersey. He disappeared about five years ago after being tied to a triple murder.”

Yikes. “So how does he fit in with Edward Dryden?”