Uncross My Heart (11 page)

Lyra stood up from the table and waved when I entered the restaurant, and I walked back to the tiny dining alcove she and Jude occupied. Both hugged me, Lyra hanging on a bit longer and with greater intensity, and I felt momentarily relaxed and among friends.

She wore a flowing skirt and blouse that seemed to billow even when she was sitting still and was covered in enough bright flowers to make her look like camouflage at the parrot sanctuary. She immediately regurgitated her itinerary, saying she’d returned from a speaking engagement and was high on the success of the entire event. She felt strongly that she and C3 were having some sway with the Catholic clergy.

“That’s what I love about Lyra,” Jude said, addressing me as if Lyra weren’t there, “she has one good meeting with fifty old hippies, and she thinks she’s somehow changed two thousand years of oppression.”

“One drop of water, over time, will wear away stone,” Lyra said, and hoisted her glass.

I scanned the room, already bored with the banter when I saw her standing in the doorway, looking around in search of something. Then she caught sight of me and, after a beat, turned and left. I jumped up so quickly that I nearly upended my water glass and bolted for the door as my dinner partners shouted worried questions after me. I crossed the restaurant and hit the front door in seconds, jogging to her car as I saw the back of her jacket sinking into the plush leather seats of her Beemer.

“Wait, Vivienne.” She turned toward me as I nearly landed on top of her car and planted both palms on the open window. “Are you following me?” I panted, and my voice sounded irritated even to me.

“Yes…I am.”

She looked at me intensely for a few seconds, almost as if she was trying to figure out who I was, a total stranger she only thought she knew. Dozens of emotions crowded my brain as I sifted through them for the one that made sense. One minute I was running away from this woman and the next minute running to her.

“You mind telling me why?” Conversation came out in bursts and starts, my anger dissipated by her mere gaze, her physical presence completely destroying any rational thought.

“When you left my office, you seemed disoriented and upset.”

“Like now,” I said, trying to lighten my tone.

“I thought you might be so upset that you couldn’t drive.”

“So you were concerned about me.”

She paused, as if that thought struck her as odd. “I generally don’t chase after people who insult me in my office and then stalk off threatening to sue me. But I…didn’t want your head-on collision on my conscience.” Her eyes were penetrating and defiant, and she seemed to be angry with herself for having come this far, perhaps even feeling foolish. The last rays from a burnt orange sky glanced off the car’s side mirror, creating sun flares all around her, and my words tumbled out in verbal surrender to her physical beauty.

“Would you come in and have dinner? These are just…people I barely know, actually.”

“I’ve got some things to do—”

“If I’d known, I would never have accepted this invitation, but then if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have known where to find me, or maybe you would have followed me home, which would have been better…”

I made a note to do a better editing job before I spoke. “Maybe I’m not feeling as great as I thought. I’m babbling.”

“Would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow night?” The invitation sounded abrupt, as if she was giving in to me, or to herself, or to something that was annoying her.

“Yes. That’s what I’m saying. I’d love that.”
What in hell am I
doing? Dennis will have a field day with this.

“My house at seven?”

“Great. Perfect. Where do you—”

“I have a card.” She reached in her bag and took out a business card and on the back side wrote her home address and phone number.

The card smelled of perfume and the night air blew her fragrance toward me. Even the phone number felt incredibly intimate, and I stopped looking at the card in favor of her eyes. “You’d better get back to your friends.”

“I wish it were tomorrow night. Then this dinner would be over. I’m really not a very good dinner guest.”

“I’ll take my chances. I got Joyce to Google Roger Thurgood. She’s good at pretending to be someone else in order to get information out of people. Maybe she can help you find out where he got the article.”

“I’m glad it wasn’t you who sent it.” My tone was apologetic.

“Are you allergic to anything—nuts, alcohol?”

“No, I’m fine with those.” I felt disembodied, remote, absent, thinking of Roger Thurgood disliking me enough to want to do me in.

“See you tomorrow, Alex.” Her voice softened as I treasured the sound of my nickname. She pulled away from the curb and I waved good-bye before turning back to the restaurant.
This feeling is too good
to…be good,
I thought.

* * *

“I was about to send out a search party. In fact, I did go to the door to see if you were okay,” Jude said as I rejoined them.

“A lot of people are checking on me lately.”

“Maybe you need it.” Lyra grinned, biting into something she’d ordered in my absence.

“Who was that woman?” Jude asked.

“A writer the seminary asked me to hook up with.”

“Nice hook.” Jude looked at me oddly.

I ignored her and focused on asking questions about Lyra’s trip, giving her too much attention in order to keep Jude from prying into my conversation with Vivienne.

Dinner went on far too long, and I was so fidgety I could barely stay in my seat as my mind floated down the freeway with Vivienne, wondering if she was going home and what home looked like.
This isn’t normal. Well, it might be normal for some people but not for me.
I was jolted out of my reverie by a hand on my knee.

“You aren’t eating much these days.” Lyra rubbed my thigh.

“Perhaps there’s something else you would enjoy.”

“Yeah,” Jude said, oblivious to what was going on under the tablecloth. “Order dessert.”

“I’ve got everything I need,” I said, and Lyra took that as a personal endorsement of her romantic technique and got a firmer grip on my leg.

“As much as I’d like to stay,” I looked at my watch for emphasis,

“I’ve got to get home. Early morning tomorrow.” Lyra was forced to let go of my thigh as I stood up. I gave her a brief and perfunctory hug, ditto for Jude, and escaped into the cool night air, pausing to stare at the spot where Vivienne’s car had been parked.

She actually followed me all this way to see if I was okay.
A little thrill ran through me, like the reverberation of bells trailing over my skin.

Breaking bread with parishioners is part of what a priest does—dines with those whom he blesses and who in turn bless him. When invited to a parishioner’s home for dinner, I’d always been appropriately witty within limits and extremely courteous and caring. And for that alone I never enjoyed myself—too much image control. But several things I was not—nervous, ill at ease, or worried about what I wore.

So tonight, of all things, why am I nervous and digging through
my closet for a chic, butter-soft charcoal leather jacket to wear over
my black turtleneck and black slacks, and checking my makeup every
fifteen minutes, for God’s sake
?

Her house was in a posh part of town—a two-story flat with broad cement steps on which someone could sit and watch the passersby. The windows overlooking the wide front porch were lit up, and the light slanted down on a white slat swing hanging from chains anchored in the ceiling. It was the kind of place where a young boy might steal a kiss from his teenage date and an irritated father might peer through the curtains and then flash the porch light and finally chase the sexual interloper away. For a moment I expected an older man to glower at me through the gauze drapes.

The door swung open. “Were you eventually going to ring the bell or, like a moth, are you just attracted to the porch light?”

“Hello.” I pretended to be wiping my feet on the door mat, about to make a move for the doorbell. I followed her inside where the charm of early nineteen-hundreds architecture with its big parlor and winding staircase took me back to a quieter time. The house smelled like cinnamon apples and I hoped that was dessert. Vivienne Wilde looked a bit like a Christmas delight—reflected in an orange-red glow that followed her around as if her hair had painted everything it swung by.

“You look lovely,” I said.

“And you look stately chic, as usual.”

I treasured her compliment as I trailed her down the expansive corridor lined with gilt-edged frames of elderly people, who, judging by the style of their wardrobes, were now long dead.

She answered my unasked question. “This house has been in the family for nearly a hundred years.”

“We have old family haunts in common. I live in my maternal grandmother’s farmhouse not too far from the city.”

“A farmhouse.” She whirled to face me as joyful as a child. “I would love to see that.”

“Name the day. I’d love to show it to you.” I allowed my brain to register that making this woman smile made me light up. All right, perhaps more than light up. A massive tingling sensation shot through my body evidencing, even to me, that I was undeniably attracted to her.

I had not been uncontrollably attracted to anyone in a decade. I had averted, aborted, adroitly avoided attraction to anyone—but tonight my body told me that I had just lost the battle. This woman sent warmth cascading over me like sunlight.

The living room was a large, drafty parlor whose architectural saving grace was a gigantic fireplace with massive logs and a roaring blaze. I inquired as to who prepared the logs, certain it would take two grown men to drag them in. She laughed. “You don’t think I could?”

“If you could drag those logs in single-handedly, I wouldn’t be having dinner with you.”

“Do strong women scare you?” She laughed congenially.

“Clever women scare me and you are—”

“Smart, not clever.” She placed a hand firmly on my chest just below the shoulder, and my knees grew weak as she slipped her fingers up and around the nape of my neck and whipped the collar back to examine the label. “I love Armani. Here, let me have it.” She deftly removed my jacket, leaving me feeling vulnerable.
My jacket is my one
remotely cool item.

“You’re going to be hot in that turtleneck by the fire…but don’t take it off.”

“Naked clergy scare you?” I teased back.

“Now that you mention it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. Which is odd,” she refused to let it drop, “since I’ve seen most everything.”

I wondered if her remark was humor or truth. A short oriental man in a tight-fitting white jacket came into the room and without a word began preparing a buffet table—pulling it back from the wall, adding a cloth he’d carried neatly folded over his arm—and then disappeared momentarily into the hallway.

“I had the chef prepare something that would linger without poisoning us, and that way, we can sit, talk, eat, in whatever order pleases you.”

The oriental fellow returned pushing a tea cart with dome-covered dishes and transferred them onto the table he’d prepared, all faster than hotel room service.

“Anything else, Ms. Wilde?”

“No, thank you, Niji.” He gave her a nod just this side of a bow and left, closing the door behind him. “Family money. Lest you think I shagged my way to luxury,” she said, using the amusing British slang for fornication. “Let’s have a look, I’ll bet you’re hungry.” She lifted a sterling lid and peered at the roast beef beneath. I told her it all looked great, took a small square of dark bread, and used a fat-handled knife sporting a baroquely engraved
W
to spread the brie. “I think you’ll need something more substantial than that.” She offered up a star-shaped cracker spread with pâté and held it to my lips.

I don’t have a free hand. She can’t possibly mean for me to bite
into it while she’s holding it
.

“I’ll bet it’s been a long time since you’ve tried this.” Her tone seemed to mean something entirely apart from pâté.

I bit slowly into the offering and her fingers brushed my lips.

Her face revealed nothing as my body trembled, betraying my attempt to conceal that biting into anything she held between her fingers was unbearably erotic.

“Wonderful?” she asked, as if seeking praise for the repast rather than noticing my physical response to her touch. My eyes rose to meet hers, blue shimmering seas. “You have a beautiful mouth.” She spoke almost absently as she turned away from me.

Priests place wafers into the mouths of total strangers, offering
the body of Christ. Was she offering her body?
Does she offer herself
to everyone?

I followed her lead by picking up a gilt-edged dinner plate as she glanced over her shoulder. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Most days. This might not be one of them.” My tone was teasing but my statement factual.

“Life is short. I believe in getting what you want,” she said, but “the look” had vanished, disintegrated into politeness. I took a deep breath and collected myself, focused on getting the roast beef and vegetables onto the china and not the floor, and then trailed her to the couch in front of the fireplace. Placing my plate on the long coffee table, I tried to relax and complimented her on the house, asking her about its history as nonchalantly as if I’d never seen her searing glance.

She responded to my questions in a friendly but detached fashion.

And as I stared into her magnificent face, I knew my side of this inane conversation was simply verbal camouflage for the simmering fire within me that, given air, could consume us both. I shuddered from the intensity of my feelings.

“You can’t be cold.”

I wanted to say I wasn’t cold at all, but had simply been on ice for some time waiting for the heat that would melt me, and now like a Southern summer it had arrived.

I summoned enough air to whisper, “No.”

Niji came back in short order and took the dishes away, removed the food with lightning speed, and poured us an after-dinner liqueur. I took that opportunity to get off the couch and away from her, staring out of the massive arched window overlooking the lantern-lit back lawn. The door clicked and then Vivienne approached.