Enthralled (14 page)

Teel had the strongest desire
to say she was Minnie Brown, but Nancy pointed to her without taking her eyes
off the roses. "She's Miss Barrett. Those sure are beautiful
flowers." "Yep." The sweating attendant set them down and
regarded them with pride. Then he whipped out a pad and pen and handed both to
Teel. "Sign here, please."

"No," Teel whispered
through dry lips.

"Lady." The
attendant gave her a long-suffering look. "You can't have the flowers without
signing. So sign."

"Give them to a
hospital." Teel shook off Nancy's pinching hand.

"Now look, lady, I got a
lotta deliveries to make and I don' wanna play games." He cocked his head
and shifted his weight to the other hip.

Teel stared at
him, then nodded and scrawled her name at the bottom where the x indicated.

"Open the
card, Teel," Nancy hissed, trying to smile at the gathering crowd.
"Just a little congratulations for the team," she improvised when a
curious woman looked from the flowers to the card clutched in Teel's hand.
"Open the damn thing, will you?" Nancy muttered out of the side of
her mouth. "See who it's from."

"I know who
it's from," Teel whispered back, ignoring a man who was trying to ask her
about the flowers.

"Open the card or I
will." Nancy snapped her teeth together over the last of her sandwich,
then glared at a matronly woman who had begun to pull one of the roses from the
spray. "Stop that!" Nancy stood up and grabbed the rose from the
woman's hand. The woman sniffed and walked away.

Teel opened the small white
envelope and looked at the card as though she had just drawn the black marble
in a gladiator's arena.

Thank you, my darling, for a
beautiful evening. Always yours. Chazz.

Teel's head thumped.
"I'll kill him," she said as .Nancy pulled the card from her lifeless
fingers and read it

"Wow!" Nancy looked at Teel, shock and envy warring in her eyes. "You're a dark horse on the
field of love." Her exaggerated sigh penetrated Teel's haze.

"Give me that," she
raged at her friend. "You had no business reading that drivel, those
lies."

"You're a regular Jekyll
and Hyde, ain't ya?" Nancy laughed and stepped out of range when Teel
would have poked her in the arm.

"Nancy," Teel fumed,
"if you want to continue to be my friend, you will say nothing more about
this disgusting flower arrangement."

"It may be disgusting to
you, but it's sexy to me." Nancy's face fell. "Why doesn't something
like this ever happen to me?" She studied Teel, grim-faced. "I'm
telling you right now, if I thought I could find someone like Chazz in a banana
republic in Central America, I'd be on a plane in a minute."

"Be quiet," Teel
pleaded, then rose and left the flowers where they were.

By the end of the day,
everywhere Teel looked, she saw people with a white rose in their hair or
pinned to their shirts. The sight made her ill.

That night when the other
moderators gathered with Nancy and Teel in the hotel lobby, Teel kept looking
over her shoulder expecting to see Chazz coming up behind her. She knew he had
planned to pick her up at the Garden and would be angry when he arrived and
found the place closed and Teel nowhere in sight. "Ah, listen group,"
she said, "I've decided to fly back to Selby tonight and not wait for the
finals."

Everyone looked surprised. Nancy stepped close and whispered "Chicken." Teel ignored her.

"But why do you want to
go back now?" Buz asked.

"There are a
lot more helpers for the games than we figured," Teel explained, "so
it's just as well that I get back and tackle some of the paper work that has
been accumulating."

"But we were planning
such a nice dinner at that French place Chazz told us about," Clint said.
"Sure you won't change your mind?"

"Do change your
mind," Nancy cooed.

Teel glared at her. "No,
I think I'll see about getting an evening flight. I can eat at home."

"If you're sure you won't
change your mind," Clint urged.

Teel shook her
head, anxious to be gone. She hoped she had time to pack her belongings and
leave before Chazz caught up with her. Once back in Selby on her own turf she
would be able to rebuff the great Chazz Herman quite easily. The thought
cheered her as she rode the elevator to her room. It sustained her during a
call to the airline to ask for a reservation and then to the desk to say that
she was checking out.

When she'd
finished packing, she slung her garment bag over her shoulder, picked up her
purse, and balanced a small bag in the other hand. All the time she was at the
desk checking out she expected to feel a hand on her shoulder. Her back began
to itch in anticipation. The desk clerk stared at her as she wiggled trying to
alleviate the annoyance.

"I have an itch," she
explained.

"Oh." The desk clerk
looked suspicious'

Teel considered
taking the Port Authority Bus to La Guardia but decided the walk to the
terminal was too long. She didn't want to take a cab for such a short hop
either, so she decided to take a cab directly to La Guardia instead.

She leaned back against the
seat, feeling safe for the first time, until the ride began. Her breath caught
in her throat as her driver caromed off the wall of the tunnel and zoomed up
the ramp. Teel felt as though she were on a roller coaster ride.

"I don't like
tunnels," the driver explained, chomping on a big wad of bubble gum and
grinning at her in his rear-view mirror. It seemed to Teel that he looked at
her too much and at the road too little. She was about to mention this when he
careened around a truck with much horn-blowing, yelling, and shaking of fists.
"Some of these guys think they own the road," her driver informed
her, blowing a huge bubble that Teel was sure obscured his vision. 'Trying to
quit smoking," he explained tersely.

"Admirable," Teel
answered finally, when he continued to look at her expectantly.

"Yeah. The way I figure
it, you gotta do something else close to smoking, so I chew bubble gum."
Another bubble began forming on his lips.

"Marvelous."

During the rest of
the ride the driver expounded at length on religion, politics, and his deep
reverence for capital punishment. When Teel at last stepped out of the cab at
La Guardia, she had to restrain an urge to kneel and kiss the cement. She
tipped the driver ten dollars. "That's for flowers in case you have an
accident."

"Thanks, lady. You sure
have a weird sense of humor."

"So I'm told." Teel
escaped into the airport lounge, glad that she had to wait only half an hour
for her flight. Between watching the doors for Chazz's appearance and trying to
fight the blues at leaving him, she was feeling a little sad by the time she
boarded for the short trip to Selby.

She sipped a Coke the air
flight attendant served her and gobbled down a small package of peanuts. Her stomach
protested at not having had lunch or dinner, but after seeing the roses arrive
at the Garden, she had been unable to finish her lunch. Right now the rest of
her group would be sitting down to dinner.

Teel's thoughts of Chazz
didn't stop even on that brief plane flight. She missed him as though he had
been a limb attached to her that someone had amputated. She swallowed and
blinked away the sting of tears. She would just have to work hard and force
herself not to think of him. Sure, an inner voice chided, don't think of him—
for maybe fifteen minutes out of every twenty-four hours. No, it wouldn't be
like that, another inner voice insisted. Time was a great leveler. Maybe she
wouldn't forget him altogether, but there would be long periods of contentment
in her life. Her work was satisfying mentally and physically, and spiritually
uplifting as well. She couldn't be around her students long and still feel
down; they always buoyed her spirits. She took a deep breath. She would be
content with that.

It was raining when the small
jet landed in Selby. Teel stood at the empty cab stand and sighed. She would
have to wait. It was too long a walk to her house, and she didn't want to
disturb any of her friends during what could be their dinner hour. Binny's was
the only local taxi service. No doubt Monica Binny would be the driver. Teel
settled down to wait in the dingy waiting room and listlessly flipped the pages
of some year-old, dogeared magazines that had been flung on a rickety coffee
table. The cab arrived forty-five minutes later. She stowed her bag in the
trunk and got into the back seat to listen to Monica Binny's long list of
complaints.

"My bunions are killing
me," Monica wailed. "All the hard work I do." She glared in the
rear-view mirror as if daring Teel to disagree with her. "I'm going to Florida for a vacation. Boy, do I need the rest. I'm going to Disney World."

"Oh," Teel replied,
wondering how Disney World would help Monica's bunions.

Monica drove through the
center of town and began the circuitous climb up the narrow road that led to
Teel's house, the old stone carriage house on the Minder estate just outside of
town. The estate had been sold years ago.

The big stone mansion had been
converted into the town historical museum and renamed the Selby Museum.

Just inside the
stone walls—the iron gates had been removed many years before—stood the
carriage house that Teel had purchased shortly after arriving in Selby. The
town fathers had decided that the sale of the unused carriage house would bring
revenues they could use on the mansion-museum.

Teel had been delighted with
her purchase, despite the fact that it needed a thorough cleaning and lacked
every modern convenience except electricity. With great enthusiasm, she had
wangled a home-improvement loan from a local bank and proceeded to remodel the
inside. She had hired a couple of college kids to paint and clean the stone
work outside and had planted a small garden on the quarter acre of land that
the town fathers had staked out as her property. It had taken Teel five years
to refurbish the cottage. Though there was nothing fancy about it, she was
happy there.

The downstairs consisted of
one large room that served as a combined living room, dining room and kitchen.
At the carpenter's suggestion, she had added a tiny but convenient powder room
with a shower cubicle.

As Teel unlocked
the front door, she looked around her and sighed with pleasure. Everything was
just as she had left it. The round, braided rugs in red, cream and blue looked
bright and colorful when she turned on the light. She glanced up the steep
stairway that hugged one wall and smiled at the braided rug oblongs in the same
red, cream, and blue colors on each step. She left her garment bag and suitcase
at the foot of the stairs. She would carry them up when she was ready to go to
bed.

She walked into
the small kitchen, which was separated from the lounge area by a long counter
topped in azuelos tile that her aunt's friend had sent her from Central America. She was leaning on the counter eating apeanut butter sandwich and drinking
a glass of milk when the doorbell rang. She frowned as she walked across the
room to answer it, wondering who it could be.

She threw the door wide open,
not fearing intruders, and gasped when she saw who was standing there.

"Hello,
darling. You have peanut butter on your mouth." Chazz stepped inside and
pulled her into his arms, his mouth covering hers, his tongue licking the
peanut butter from her lips.

Immediately Teel's head began
to ache, and a sweet lassitude invaded her limbs. Chazz had found her!

The kiss deepened
before Teel could rally her defenses and fend Chazz off. His
tongue teased the inside of her mouth, lighting small fires wherever it
touched.

Teel heard someone groan his
name, then, as her arms came up to hold him, she realized it had been her own
voice. Sanity returned in a cold wave, and she tried to thrust Chazz away. She
succeeded in wedging only a centimeter of space between them.

"Stop that! Just where do
you think you are?" she huffed, getting crosseyed from staring at him so
closely.

Chazz nodded and swept Teel
off her feet. "You're right. It's too cold here to make love. We'll close
the door and do it inside."

"We will not!" she
shouted at him, struggling to get free. It irritated her that he managed to
hold her and close the door with his shoulder at the same time. "This is
my home... and... you... have no rights here." She continued to push at
him even when he sank down onto the couch next to the fieldstone fireplace.

Chazz held Teel in
his lap and looked around him. "This is very nice, Teel. I think we'll be
very comfortable here."

She looked at him, mouth
agape, anger pulsing through her. "You have a few slices missing in your
loaf, man, if you think I'll let you stay here."

"I'm staying.
You owe me for all those days and nights on the
Deirdre,
all those great meals Rowan cooked for you. Good
chef, isn't he?"

"Yes." Teel tried to
wriggle out of his lap.