Do Not Disturb (13 page)

“Ready?” he asked politely. “It
is
getting late.”

Since she assumed he didn't have a curfew, she caught the clue and figured out their little interlude
was going to end just like this. He didn't want to come into her cottage tonight, much less into her bed.

Good Lord. She didn't know whether to feel rejected or relieved, but she'd been left out of pleasure enough times herself to know that
he
couldn't be feeling very cheerful at the moment. So what was she supposed to do now, apologize?

Ignoring the hot flush of embarrassment rushing over her face, Angel crossed her arms over her chest. Wasn't this always the way of it? Though tonight the “before” hadn't been half-bad—okay, it had been great—the “after,” as usual, sucked.

“It isn't fair,” she finally muttered.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and glanced away. “It doesn't always have to be fair.”

“I'm not talking about
that,
” she said, rolling her eyes. “I haven't even gotten to
that
.”

“Then what are you talking about?”

“I just hate all this.” Her hand waved to indicate him, her, the chair.

“You hate to come?” he asked, his tone amused.

Oh, curse him, Angel thought, narrowing her eyes. He'd decided to cover the clumsy moment by being cool. Cool and detached and amused.

It only added a layer of irritation to her mood. “I hate after,” she clarified.

“Well—”

“What are you supposed to do, after? Can you tell me that?” She allowed righteous indignation to plow right over her discomfort. “I've read a thousand articles on how to get a man in bed, how to keep a man in bed, how to make a man breakfast in bed, but I've never
read a word on how to gracefully pick up right where you left off with a man after…well…you know.”

His eyebrows lifting, he rocked back on his heels. “Is that what you usually do? Try to pick up ‘right where you left off' after you've had intercourse with a man?”

Her jaw dropped in disbelief. How had she let this man, this man with the annoyingly calm voice and irritatingly superior expression, touch her? Was he really the one who, just minutes before, had one hand down her blouse and the other up her skirt?

She pointed her finger at his chest. “Don't do that. Don't give me that assessing, amused look while asking me questions. That's lawyer hoo-doo, and you're using it to avoid this discussion.”

“Angel—”

“And then there's that word.
Intercourse
.” She was on a roll now, and he wasn't going to stop her. “What kind of word is that? It sounds like something cars travel along—you know, ‘take a left at the first intercourse'—not something a man and a woman do together. Which, by the way, we did not. Perhaps you'd care to elaborate on that, counselor.”

Hah. Let
him
take the witness stand for a minute.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. You're moving too fast for me.”

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Sure. Let me slow it down for you, then.” She sucked in a breath. “The fact is, we didn't—”

“I don't think we should go to bed together.”

“Hey, I don't recall favoring the idea either!” She tapped her toe, impatient with his maddening sangfroid and her just-as-maddening lack of it. “But see, well…the kissing was nice and then…and then…and now…”

“Then? Now?”

She threw up her hands. “Now I don't know what to do or what to say.”

“Why don't you just say thank you?”

At times like this it was hard not to believe that men were truly the inferior sex, Angel thought, staring at him and shaking her head. After thousands of years, they'd yet to figure out that reason and logic had no place under certain circumstances.

“Look,” she said through her teeth. “I feel…I feel as if I've done you wrong.”

“Come on, Angel, it's not that big a deal.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he spun away from her. “Hasn't any man ever done you right before?”

That was such a good question—and on so many levels—that she should be laughing hysterically. But instead there was something about his abrupt about face that made her pause. That made her see there was a ruddy flush crawling up the back of his neck.

She wasn't the only one embarrassed.

She wasn't the only one who was wishing this awkward moment away.

Well.

“I think we should blame it on the eggplant,” she suddenly announced, walking over to Cooper to tuck her hand in his arm. She ignored his quick flinch and started strolling toward the door, tugging him with her. “I read all about it in last month's issue of
Vegetarian Times
.”

She peeped at him from beneath her lashes and saw the frown between his eyes ease.

“Eggplant?” he echoed.

“Eggplant.” Without a thought for the truth, she
launched into an extensive, detailed account of how the purple properties of eggplant led people to do all sorts of out-of-character things. “It affects a person's decision-making process,” she concluded, when they were outside her cottage. “The fact is, it's the anti-garlic.”

“The anti-garlic.”

She waved a hand. “That's right, anything good that garlic does, you know, like heighten the brain's focus or whatever, eggplant
un
does.”

“In some cultures garlic's considered an aphrodisiac.”

“Well, there you g—” Looking up, she broke off, her tongue tied by the half-smile on his face and the look of understanding in his eyes.

His expression was so warm, so…
honest
that it almost had her begging to bring him inside. Angel Buchanan, nearly begging a man to join her in bed.

What was
wrong
with her?

He left before she came up with an answer.

Only later did she fall upon something that satisfied her. Lying in bed, trying not to think of what she'd let Cooper do, she realized that it was the “letting” that had gotten her into trouble.

Let me take care of you,
he'd said.

She knew better than to fall for that! A woman had to take care of herself, and take care not to give her heart.

But the very fact that she
had
fallen for that line, and then that she had abdicated even a tiny, purely physical bit of herself to Cooper, made it all the more important that she finish up her interviews and get back to the city. Coupled with instant coffee, the eggplant—organic fare in general—was making her soft.

Dangerously soft.

 

The next morning, straight from the shower, Angel showed up at the Whitney house unannounced. “I want to finish my interviews ASAP,” she blurted out the instant Lainey opened the door. “I was hoping I could talk to Katie.”

Lainey acted as if wet-haired women with urgent voices showed up on her porch every day. “Surely you'd like a cup of coffee first,” she said.

Just like that, Angel found herself following the other woman into the kitchen, cursing her own frailties all the way. If she didn't get back to the city, and soon, her self-command would be completely eroded. Not only did Cooper make her weak, but she couldn't say no to Lainey's coffee.

The mug the woman handed her was filled with a dark brew that smelled of French-roasted, freshly ground beans. Angel liked Lainey's coffee. She took a deep breath of its scent. Really, really liked it.

One cup couldn't destroy her objectivity, could it?

Telling herself to gulp it down and then get on with her job, Angel lifted the mug to her mouth. With it halfway there, she froze, gawking at Lainey.

The other woman was warily approaching a cardboard box sitting on the kitchen table, a sharp knife in her raised hand.

Angel set her mug on the countertop. “Shall I arm myself with a frying pan?”

Lainey started. “What?”

“You look as if you're afraid of what's inside that box,” Angel said, nodding at it.

“Yes, well…” Lainey shrugged, then used the knife
on the tape binding the cardboard flaps. “It's from the licensing company. More of the Whitney merchandise.”

Angel already knew of the licensing agreement, but Lainey's odd manner aroused her curiosity. It only grew stronger as the widow reluctantly peeled back the box's flaps and then, taking a deep breath, looked inside.

“Well?” Angel asked.

Flicking her a glance, Lainey drew from the box a cardboard, accordion-style car windshield visor. As she slowly unfolded it, a colorful, typical Whitney image was revealed—a drive-in movie theater at dusk, circa 1950s.

Angel tilted her head. There was something part Norman Rockwell, part Andy Warhol about the artist's work. Every one of the old-fashioned, sentimental scenes were as brightly colored and as marketing savvy as a soup can.

Lainey set the item on the table and reached inside again, this time bringing out a bundled trio of small, shaggy rugs, all three printed with the same bucolic washbowl and pitcher filled with wildflowers. It took a moment for Angel to discern that while two were indeed rugs, the third of the set was actually the furry cover for a toilet seat.

“Oh, Stephen,” Lainey whispered helplessly.

Angel shook her head. The “Artist of the Heart's” latest endeavors were going to give the art critics—who unanimously abhorred the Whitney paintings—a field day.

“A chance to get in their potshots,” she murmured to
herself, as she watched Lainey unfold one of the matching rugs.

“Oh no,” the widow said in stunned tones. “It only gets worse. Look, this one goes beneath the toilet. My husband approved of his art on a shag rug that surrounds the base of a
toilet
.” Lifting it up, she peered at Angel through the distinctive cutout.

Oh my
. Lainey's pretty face and horrified expression, framed by the little rug, were suddenly too much for Angel. Biting down on her lower lip, she spun toward the countertop.

“What's the matter?” Lainey asked, crossing toward her. “Are you all right?”

Hastily nodding her head, Angel waved the other woman back. “Mmm, mmm.” She pressed her lips together harder.

Lainey halted. “Why…why, you're laughing.”

Feeling lower than a rat and all humor evaporating, Angel spun back, ready to apologize. But Lainey was looking down at the rug in her hand.

Then her serious gaze lifted to Angel's. “Short of the ‘Artist of the Heart' toilet paper,” she said, her voice glum, “this
is
the tackiest thing I have ever seen.”

“T-toilet paper?” Angel echoed.

And then, God forgive her, she burst out laughing. And then, disaster upon disaster, Lainey joined in. To make matters worse, as the widow continued to laugh, she clutched Angel's arm as if they were truly sharing something—as if they were friends.

“Why?” Lainey finally choked out, still holding on to Angel with one hand and shaking the offending rug in
the other. “Why this? Why toilet paper? What was he
thinking
?”

Angel couldn't help herself. “That he wanted to be on the minds of men everywhere?”

That set them both off again. When the laughter died down, it was Angel who poured coffee for Lainey. Then she freshened her own mug and joined the other woman to sit at the kitchen table.

Pushing the bath items aside, Lainey frowned at them, then sighed. “One of my bigger regrets is that the last work Stephen gives to the world will be these.”

Angel took a swallow of her coffee. “So you didn't want to burn the new paintings?”

Lainey shrugged. “That was his wish, that the unfinished work be burned.” Then she sighed again. “Which meant all the past year's work was lost. It was his habit to leave a little piece of each painting undone. Then, come the month before his annual show, he'd paint like a maniac to finish them. I'd bring food to the tower, but half the time he wouldn't eat it.”

Lainey's expression turned bleak and Angel heard herself rushing to reassure her. “I'm sure you took very good care of him, Lainey,” she said, though she was keenly aware it wasn't objective reporter-speak. The trouble was, she not only liked Lainey's coffee, but she liked Lainey too. “I'm sure you did.”

“That was my job. To make his life comfortable so that he could concentrate on his work.” Her gaze met Angel's. “But what am I going to do now?”

Angel instantly pretended an interest in the inside of her coffee mug and wished herself in a galaxy far, far away. “Well, uh, I don't know.” This was what she got
for staying past her one-coffee limit: emotion-heavy, teary-eyed questions. “What did you want to do before he came along?”

Lainey laughed again, but this time there wasn't the smallest grain of amusement in it. “I wanted him to come along.”

Angel jumped out of her chair. The other woman's answer cut too close to what she'd wanted when she was a little girl. It was also what she'd vowed never to want once she was old enough to understand why her mother had married—disastrously—on the rebound from Stephen Whitney's defection.

Because by then Angel knew it was the very worst kind of dependence, tying your happiness to a man. Tying yourself to a man at all.

“May I see Katie now?” She took her mug to the sink. “If she becomes upset, I won't push.”

At the mention of her daughter, Lainey's expression shifted from sad to worried. “Talking might do Katie some good, actually. I can't seem to get anything out of her—the rest of the family either. Go on up the stairs, her room's the first door on your left.”

Angel nodded, turned.

“She hasn't cried since her father's death,” Lainey added. “A friend sent me a book on children and grief and it says she should cry.”

In one swift
woosh,
Angel's stomach tightened.