Last Chance at Love (7 page)

After hanging up, Allison phoned Connie. “I’m bored. Want to go to Blues Alley?”

“Did I ever say no? Where’s tall, tan, and terrific tonight?”

“No idea. Meet you there ten minutes to eight.”

* * *

“Would you believe this?” Connie asked her when the band assembled on the stage. “No Buddy Dee and no Mac.”

The manager went to the microphone and addressed the patrons. “We have a real treat for you tonight, folks. Mark Reddaway will show you what the blues are all about, but don’t let the man fool you. Monday morning he’ll be in his office on Connecticut Avenue designing skyscrapers.” He put his hands over his head and applauded. “Give it up for Mark, everybody.”

“They must be kidding,” Connie said when the man, elegant in a gray pin-striped suit and with a twelve-string guitar strapped across his shoulders, began picking and singing “It Ain’t Nobody’s Business If I Do.”

“Close your mouth, girl,” Allison said as Connie looked as if she’d been stung by a bee. Allison didn’t remember having seen the polished and self-assured woman so attentive to anything other than her work as an engineer. Tall, svelte, and fashion-conscious, Connie was a woman at the top of her field professionally and with a tight grip on the remainder of her world. Allison couldn’t believe the lost look in Connie’s eyes. At least she wasn’t the only woman a man had poleaxed the minute she saw him.

For the remainder of Mark’s performance, Connie, always talkative and with a ready quip, didn’t say one word. The set ended, and Allison watched the man bowing to the prolonged applause and whistles, obviously pleased.

“What...” Connie’s chair was vacant, and when Allison looked toward the stage, she saw Connie standing there shaking hands with Mark Reddaway.

“What was that about?” she asked her friend when Connie returned to the table for the beginning of the second set.

“Uh...tell you later. Do you mind leaving alone? I...uh... I want a chance to get to know Mark. Thanks, friend.”

“Sure. Go for it.” In the five years that she and Connie had been friends, the woman dated frequently, but hadn’t become attached to anyone. “You think this has possibilities?” she asked Connie.

Connie lowered her gaze in an uncustomary show of diffidence. “I know it has. It... Lord, I hope so.”

At home later, Allison pondered her feelings for Jake and her increasing insecurity in regard to them. She had detected a mystery about the man, a puzzling demeanor that should warn her to steer clear of him, and it did. But then, he would show her how gracious, kind, and considerate he could be, or that wink of his would captivate her, and she’d forget her misgivings.

* * *

Jake completed the plan, faxed it to his chief, and was back in New York Sunday night. He imagined that Allison spent the weekend in Washington and quickly verified it. As he was about to dial her phone number, he received a call from the chief. “This is great. Congratulations on an excellent job. I’d like you here Wednesday morning for at least half a day, so we can discuss it with the secretary.” In his mind’s eye, he could see the chief throw up his hands, palms out, when he said, “Just half a day is all I’m asking.”

He figured that, as far as Allison was concerned, he’d just banged one more nail in his coffin, but this had to do with the welfare of the United States of America. His right shoulder lifted and fell quickly, almost as if by reflex. “I’ll be there.”

After his book signing at Borders Bookstore Tuesday evening, Jake admitted to himself that, at his signings, lectures, and interviews, Allison was a comforting and stabilizing factor, one who always seemed immersed in what he said and did.

He’d probably regret it, but before he left the next morning, he wanted to see her. “Have dinner with me tonight?”

“What time?”

“Seven okay? And, Allison, please leave your recorder and your notebook in your room. This will be a social occasion; journalist and author will be nowhere in sight.”

“You serious?”

He could imagine her brows knitted in perplexity. “I’m always serious.”

“Even when you’re supposed to be teasing?”

He kicked off his other shoe and stretched out on the bed, warming up to the inquisition that he knew would come. “Why not? You’re so skittish that I don’t dare use plain English, and if I spoke frankly, you’d accuse me of being unprofessional.” He wished he could see her face, because he could imagine her dilemma as to how sharply she should zing him.

“Well, thank you for not using the word
abuse.
”

He laughed. “Ah, Allison, I could—”

“You could what?”

“If I thought you wanted to know, you wouldn’t have to ask.”

“All right. I don’t want to know, but I’m stubborn. Tell me.”

He didn’t believe in self-destruction and told her as much. “If the day comes when I think you can handle it, I’ll tell you.” She didn’t have to be told, he realized, when he heard her softly seductive reply.

“And if I come to that conclusion before you do, I’ll hasten the day. But don’t wait for it. Meet you downstairs at seven. Oh, and, Jake, what was the name of that cologne you wore on Monday? I liked it.”

So she’s decided to get fresh and shove him back into his place, has she? Well, he’d show her. “I never wear cologne,” he shot back, “and from what you just said, I take it nature did a decent enough job.” He hung up and headed back to the shower, Seven o’clock wouldn’t come fast enough.

* * *

What did he mean, he never wore cologne? She’d swear in open court that he’d been wearing a cologne so seductive that she’d been tempted to walk right up to him and sniff. She put on off-black stockings, a short red-beaded dinner dress, black silk slippers in size ten-and-a-half-B, picked up a small black silk purse, and glanced in the mirror. What she saw didn’t please her, so she removed the combs from her hair and brushed it out, then applied Arpège perfume in strategic spots, threw on a light woolen stole, and went to meet him. He’d said it was a social occasion; well, when she went to dinner with a man, she dressed.

What she wouldn’t have given for a camera. She’d never have expected to see his bottom lip drop, and the evidence was fleeing indeed, but drop it he did. He recovered quickly and stepped toward her as she walked out of the elevator.

“Lovely lady, have we met somewhere?”

“My dear man,” she retorted, head high and shoulders back, “if I had ever seen you,
I
wouldn’t have to ask that question.” With half-lowered eyelids, she let her gaze travel slowly from his feet to his head, allowed a half smile to curve her bottom lip, gave the appearance of being well satisfied with what she saw, and stepped ahead of him, a queen who didn’t doubt that her subject would follow. A glance in the wall mirrors revealed his wide grin and his delight in her frivolity. She swallowed a laugh when it occurred to her that she didn’t know where they were going and that she’d have to stop and wait for him. She spun around. The devil. That explained his amusement.

His head went back, his eyes closed, silent laughter seemed to ripple through him, and his grin glistened as though a bright beam had settled on his mouth. “I have a car waiting. We’re going to The Golden Slipper. Does that suit you?”

She nodded in appreciation of his choice. “It’s a lovely place, but how did you know I’d dress?”

“Because you wouldn’t pass up the chance to go one up on me. I said this would be a social occasion, and I knew you’d show me what that meant.”

“I am not transparent,” she grumbled as they got into the car.

“No,” he agreed. “You aren’t; you’re consistent. You’re also beautiful.” His voice dropped a few decibels when he added, “Very beautiful.” She hid her pleasure at his sensual, barely audible whistle.

“Up to now, I’ve been enjoying my social evening with you, Jake.”

“But being sweet is getting the better of you. Right?”

Allison tossed her head, shrugged, and ignored his question. The limousine pulled up the curb, and the uniformed doorman opened the door and helped her out. When they reached the top of the stairs, Jake gave the maître d’ his business card and followed the man to a secluded table. A bouquet of red roses adorned their table, and she was glad she’d chosen her red dress.

He didn’t speak until after the maître d’ lit the candles and left them. “We aren’t author and journalist this evening, Allison, but we do have to deal with what those identities mean to us. Something is bubbling between you and me, just beneath the surface, and it could explode like hot lava from a live volcano. I don’t like surprises. I know what I want out of life, and I long ago decided what I would and would not sacrifice in order to achieve it. That’s something a person should know early on.”

She settled in the chair that was upholstered in avocado-green silk damask, folded her hands in her lap, and looked at him, seeing the man, thankful that the celebrity was absent. “What wouldn’t you sacrifice, Jake?”

He dipped a shrimp into its sauce, held it to her lips, and let a smile light his eyes. Surprised and pleased by his gentle gesture, she ate it, rimmed her lips with her tongue like a contented feline, and waited for his answer.

“I won’t trade having a family of my own, not even if I have to go back to wearing hand-me-down clothing, splitting wood with an ax, and cleaning the floors of a canning factory as I did during my teens.”

Her lower lip dropped, and she knew her eyes widened. This man had known pain, and she hurt for him. Every feminine part of her wanted, needed to soothe him. In an effort to brush it aside, shaken, she sat forward and blurted out, “If you want to see your children grow up, seems to me you should have some by now. Why haven’t you married?”

He leaned toward her and placed both hands on the pristine linen cloth. “My point exactly. I’m single
because
I want a family. What about you?”

She lowered her gaze. He had a penchant for shifting the questions to her, but she’d never tell him that she had pushed aside everything in quest of fame as a journalist, even the realization of her desire for a family of her own. Oh, but she wanted that, perhaps more than he. She shifted the question back to him.

She glanced at the elegance surrounding them, thought of his facile acceptance of it, of how much a part of him it seemed, and remembered his having said he’d turn his back on it rather than sacrifice his dreams.

“I hadn’t realized that you were... That, as a child, you might have had a difficult life,” she said, and tried to keep the sympathy she felt out of her voice. His easy smile didn’t fool her; nobody took pleasure in being poor. “How was it for you as a child?” she asked, her voice gentle, but not solicitous. His pause suggested uncertainty of her motive for asking, as if he were being careful not to reveal himself, and suddenly she wasn’t certain that she could handle the answer.

He shaped his hands into a pyramid, the tips of his index fingers resting beneath his chin, and the smile that flashed across his face bespoke loving remembrance. “We were poor, Allison, but I was not underprivileged.” His voice held unmistakable pride.

She hadn’t known that her hands gripped the edges of the table until a numbness drifted up her fingers. “Would you mind elaborating on that? My family had material things to throw away, but I used to think all of my friends were better off than I. Sounds fanciful, I know, but as an adult I’ve learned that kids have a clear understanding of the relationship between them and other people.”

“Weren’t you close to your folks?”

She shrugged, wary of his personal questions as, once again, he turned the inquiry back to her. “To my brother mainly. I’m not sure why, but we can almost read each other’s minds. We’ve been that close for as long as I can remember.”

“But not your parents?”

“Oh, they love my brother and me, but they’re so devoted to each other, to their causes and their place in the community, that they sometimes forget us.”

A tenderness in him reached her when his hand covered hers, draping her in a blanket of warmth and security.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “My parents lived for us—the whole family including me, I mean—and when my father died, my mother turned to me and said, ‘It’s just us now, but he left us a wonderful legacy.’ She’s strong, and so was he; I want what they had.”

Jake didn’t know the details, but he had understood what she hadn’t even voiced to her beloved brother, Sydney. She looked into the stroking tenderness in his hazel eyes, warm centers of beguiling sweetness, and had to lower her gaze. She didn’t want to care, didn’t want to need him, but he pressed her hand, and her fingers threaded themselves through his. Immediately, she tried to remove them. They had agreed to a social evening, but she was still a reporter, and he was her assignment.

“Look at me, Allison. What we’re feeling is not going to bring the world to a crashing end, and it may prove uplifting for us both.”

Maybe. She wasn’t so sure.

* * *

Jake walked out of the restaurant slightly behind Allison, his senses alive to her radiant beauty and carriage, his nostrils filled with her elegant scent. Something like lilacs or jasmine. He splayed his fingers at the small of her back, stifled an urge to wrap his hand around her waist and bring her body to his. How had he veered so far from his earlier thoughts, when he’d been certain—had sworn to himself that, despite her powerful attraction for him, he wouldn’t get involved with her? He had never been an irresolute man; he evaluated a situation, decided his course, and stuck with it. But each time he saw the softness in her or, as happened tonight, when he learned more about the person in her that she so successfully hid, he came a little closer to needing her.

“Want to stop by The Realm for an hour or so?” he asked her. “They have a great house band. How about it?” He wondered at her hesitation.

“Well, for a little while,” she agreed as their car pulled away from the curb. “I’ve never been there.”

He noticed that she left plenty of space between them, and a smile floated over his features; old habits died hard. The band was just completing a show tune as they entered the supper club, but by the time they’d seated themselves, an alto saxophone had begun its wailing statement of unrequited love in the finest example of jazz. He stood, extended his hand to her, and with an expression of resignation covering her face, she looked from his hand to his eyes and back. Then she took his hand and went into his arms, and they joined the dancers to the provocative rhythm of “Help Me Make it Through the Night.”